The Academy is organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), in the framework of the Electoral Compass, a global alliance for electoral assistance.

The acceleration of digital transformation is profoundly reshaping how power is exercised, how people participate in public life, and how collective action is built across Latin America and the Caribbean. The expansion of digital technologies—and particularly artificial intelligence—is transforming information, deliberation, and governance environments, creating new opportunities for political engagement and social mobilization. At the same time, it introduces unprecedented risks to democratic quality, including disinformation, algorithmic manipulation, and the erosion of public trust.

These processes are unfolding in a region marked by persistent structural inequalities and tensions in democratic governance, where the pace of technological adoption often exceeds institutional capacity to respond through adequate regulatory frameworks, public policies, and safeguards.

In this context, women in all their diversity are disproportionately affected by the negative impacts of digitalization: digital political violence, algorithmic bias, and gaps in digital literacy. At the same time, they remain underrepresented in the spaces where the rules governing these technologies are defined.

Against this backdrop, the Regional Women's Leadership Academy in the Digital Era emerges as a strategic response: a regional learning and networking space that strengthens leadership capable of critically understanding digital transformation, influencing its governance, and shaping its direction through rights-based, inclusive, and gender-responsive approaches.

This edition—the first designed specifically for Latin America and the Caribbean—builds on the experience of the three previous editions of the Women's Leadership Academy (WLA), held in Madrid (2023), Doha (2024), and Morocco (2025). Global video link. 

Why a Leadership Academy?

The Academy seeks to strengthen the transformative leadership capacities of women politicians in Latin America and the Caribbean in order to advance gender equality and women's substantive empowerment in the digital era. It does so through an innovative learning program that combines knowledge of artificial intelligence and digitalization, the development of technical and strategic competencies, and the strengthening of regional networks.

The learning journey is guided by three specific objectives: to provide theoretical and practical training on the current state of artificial intelligence and digitalization in the region, and their impact on women's political participation and digital governance; to develop technical and strategic competencies that strengthen participants’ capacity for advocacy, negotiation, and decision-making in complex political and digital environments; and to promote the creation and strengthening of regional networks through exchange and collaborative learning strategies, in order to collectively address technological opportunities and disruptions and contribute to resilient human development in challenging democratic contexts.

Who Participates?

The Academy brings together women leaders from public, political, institutional, and social spheres who work on state digitalization, public innovation, artificial intelligence, digital rights, political participation, civic monitoring, data protection, strategic communication, and freedom of expression. Participants represent the leadership of women in all their diversity. 

Three Themes, Three Days

The learning journey is organized into three thematic blocks, one per day, progressing from understanding the regional digital landscape to designing advocacy strategies.

Block 1. Understanding the Context: Democracy, Inequalities, and Leadership in the Digital Era

• Understand the socioeconomic and political context in which women’s leadership develops in the digital era, and reflect on development processes and democracies in the region and their impact on gender equality.
• Recognize participants’ own leadership trajectories, understand how power operates, and examine the impact of digital transformation on gender equality.

Block 2. The Power to Influence: Governance, Futures, and Transformative Leadership

• Analyze regulatory frameworks and ethical principles related to artificial intelligence, and explore national experiences that can inform advocacy strategies aimed at transforming institutions and promoting democratic governance in digital environments.
• Identify signals of change and possible future scenarios in the region’s digital landscape in order to influence and lead the development of a gender equality agenda.
• Strengthen participants’ strategic communication skills by helping them articulate their leadership purpose, develop narratives for change, and master digital tools to enhance their public visibility.

Block 3. Transforming Collectively: Alliances, Tools, and Strategies for Leadership in the Digital Era

• Strengthen technical and political capacities through the exchange of regional good practices and available tools, enabling participants to design institutional strategies to address current digital challenges and consolidate their role as agents of democratic transformation.
• Build strategic alliances and co-create collective advocacy pathways, using existing regulatory frameworks and signals of change to respond to challenges and seize the opportunities that the digital era offers for advancing gender equality across the region.