Draft first regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development

Chapter III
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Diagram III.2
Latin America (14 countries): countries with institutions responsible for Afrodescendent affairs
or the promotion of racial equality, by year of creation
Before Durban Conference
- Colombia, 1993
- Argentina, 1995
- Ecuador, 1998 and 2015
Durban Conference a
- Nicaragua, 2001 and 2008
After Durban Conference
- Guatemala, 2002
- Panamá, 2002, 2007 and 2016
- Brazil, 2003 and 2017
- Mexico, 2003
- Honduras, 2004 and 2010
- Uruguay, 2004
- Peru, 2005 and 2010
- Venezuela (Bol. Rep. of), 2005 and 2010
- Bolivia (Plur. State of), 2010
- Costa Rica, 2011 and 2015
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), “Situación de las personas afrodescendientes en América Latina y desafíos de políticas
para la garantía de sus derechos”, Project Documents (LC/TS.2017/121), Santiago, 2017.
a
World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
These institutional arrangements differ considerably between countries, particularly as regards the position
they occupy in the State hierarchy. The form of the institution (department, council, institute, secretariat,
commission, etc.) is closely bound up with the way governments address the mainstreaming of policies of
an ethnic-racial character and the priority they give the subject. The hierarchical position of these mechanisms
largely determines the stability of a country’s efforts to guarantee the rights of Afrodescendants, of the struggle
against racism and of the promotion of racial equality; it also affects the resources assigned to them and can
thus restrict their fields of action. At present, mechanisms sometimes come under the president’s office (in
Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, although in this last case it
comes under the Office of the Vice President) and sometimes under a variety of ministries. Reporting directly
to the office of the president, with the greater authority this brings, can improve its coordinating role, lending
greater efficacy to racial equality policies.
Institutional mechanisms form a system that is constantly advancing and retreating, owing to its sensitivity
to the business and political cycles that succeed one another with changes of government. These changes
have usually led to improvements and greater stability, funding and influence on policies. A good illustration
of this is the case of Costa Rica, which set up the Afro-Costa Rican Commission to mark the International
Year for People of African Descent (2011). This continued its work over the following years until the position
of Commissioner of the Office of the President for Affairs Relating to the Afro-Costa Rican Community was
created in 2015. In Panama, the National Council for the Black Ethnic Community, created in 2007, was replaced
by the National Secretariat for the Development of Afro-Panamanians in 2016.
Nonetheless, institutions can also go backwards, at least where their position in the hierarchy is concerned.
In Brazil, the National Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (SEPPIR) came under the Office of
the President from its creation in 2003 until 2007, when it was transferred to the Ministry of Human Rights.
Furthermore, it acquired the status of a ministry in 2008 but then lost it in 2015. In Ecuador, the Afro-Ecuadorian
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