A New UN Women Regional Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean Region

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The Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, John Hendra, on Wednesday 26 October opened the new UN Women Regional Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean, located in Ciudad del Saber, Panama City, the first of six regional centers planned for the organization.
At the opening, Mr. Hendra stressed that “the Regional Centre will have a key role in supporting the leadership, knowledge management and providing technical and institutional support to UN Women's national presence.

“It will also play a major role in supporting the implementation of UN Women Strategic Plan for 2011-2013 by strengthening coordination, coherence and accountability of the UN system on gender equality and empowerment of women as well as by building strategic alliances with a wide range of actors added Mr. Hendra.

In a video message in support of the opening of the centre, Michelle Bachelet highlighted some of the centre's objectives to be: “A centre close to the countries, which will work more effectively and manage the challenges of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Prior to the opening , UN Women also held a regional planning meeting in Panama that gathered UN Women's management teams and staff in the region to identify actions for 2012, taking into account the challenges that Latin America and the Caribbean face in relation to gender equality and women's human rights.