Between November 05 and 06 senior government officials, representatives from the private sector, civil society and academia from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the European Union (EU) and its Member States gathered at the EU-LAC Digital Alliance High-Level Policy Dialogue on Connectivity and Inclusion in Santiago de Chile.
Co-hosted by the European Commission and the Government of Chile and co-facilitated by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and other key partners of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance, such as the Government of Ecuador and the Government of Mexico, the policy dialogue in Chile forms part of a set of EU-LAC Digital Alliance Policy Dialogues that have been organized following the Digital Alliance Days in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in November 2023.
During the dialogue, the EU-LAC Female Digital Policy-Makers Network (Red de Mujeres Líderes en Políticas Digitales UE-ALC) was launched, as proposed by the Vice Minister of Information and Communication Technologies of Ecuador, Vicenta Macías, together with the German Ambassador to Chile, Susanne Fries-Gaier. This bi-regional network aims to strengthen women’s leadership and representation in the formulation of digital policies to promote gender equality in the digital realm.
As a key outcome of the dialogue, participants began formulating actionable conclusions to support concrete activities ahead of the EU-CELAC Summit in 2025, focusing on four key connectivity cooperation areas as outlined in the EU-LAC Joint Declaration on a Digital Alliance and the Cartagena conclusions:
The dialogue took place in parallel with the EU-LAC Digital Alliance Policy Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and concluded with a joint stocktaking session to reflect on a year of cooperation since Cartagena. Both dialogues preceded the 9th eLAC Ministerial Conference in Chile on November 7-8, strengthening collaboration and synergies between the EU-LAC Digital Alliance and the Digital Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean (eLAC).
The EU-LAC Digital Alliance Policy Dialogues are one of the four pillars of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance and are co-funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).