At the tenth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Quito, Ecuador (2007), the member States of ECLAC requested the creation of a gender equality observatory. On that occasion, the Governments also recognized that parity is “one of the key driving forces of democracy, that its aim is to achieve equality in the exercise of power, in decision-making, in mechanisms of social and political participation and representation, in diverse types of family relations, and in social, economic, political and cultural relations, and that it constitutes a goal for the eradication of women’s structural exclusion” (Quito Consensus).

ECLAC was asked to act, through its Division for Gender Affairs, as secretariat of the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, in order to coordinate the efforts both of other United Nations agencies and cooperation organizations involved, and of national machineries for the advancement of women and national statistical institutes of the countries of the region.