Trinity Academic Helps to Promote Equity and Inclusion in Central American Social Policy

Posted on: 09 February 2015

Professor Mac MacLachlan, Director of the Centre for Global Health and member of the School of Psychology in Trinity College Dublin, participated in a recent high-level ministerial meeting in Panama, as part of the Centre’s collaboration with UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformation programme; and in partnership with other leading Central American agencies.

Professor Maclachlan presented a paper entitled “Sustainability, Inclusion and Cooperation”, which focused on the uses of Equiframe – a policy analysis and development instrument developed by the Centre for Global Health and partners in the EU FP7 funded EquitAble project.  His presentation outlined the applications in Africa and Asia, where it is helping governments to shape new policies. He also gave an overview of the ongoing research by PhD candidate, Ms Tessy Huss, a researcher at the Centre for Global Health and School of Psychology. Ms Huss is currently on an internship with UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, where she is working on a new UNESCO-Trinity framework for promoting more inclusive policy processes overall.

The meeting in Panama was attended by Ministerial delegations from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama; as well as United Nations, Intergovernmental and civil society organisations; along with leading academics from the region. Charing a session on the social inclusion of Indigenous Groups, Afroamericans and Rural People, Professor MacLachlan noted that the Sustainable Development Goals, which are soon to be launched, will give a much greater emphasis to the inclusion of marginalized and vulnerable groups, and that the motivation for more equitable sharing of the gains of society is now being recognised as a powerful driver of social change globally.

Commenting on the meeting Professor MacLachlan said

The Centre for Global Health and Trinity are delighted to be associated with this important event; it extends the Centre’s contribution to social inclusion from Africa and Asia, into Central America; and we hope, into other regions too, in the coming year. We share with UNESCO the vision of developing regional Collaboratories that will facilitate policy revision, along with the sharing of learning between the participating countries.