Luana Marques Garcia, social development specialist of the Gender and Diversity Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), will present the Gender and Diversity Sector Framework for addressing race inequalities and two major operations in the area of Youth Violence Prevention and Economic Empowerment.

The presentation will take place Monday, April 10 from 3 to 4 p.m. in BELL 2286.

The event is sponsored by the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences' Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures and its Portuguese program.

Edvan Brito, assistant professor of Portuguese, said the purpose of Garcia's presentation is to increase the visibility of Portuguese-speaking countries at the U of A by raising people's awareness on socio-cultural issues that shape the everyday lives of their populations.

"The idea of bringing Dr. Garcia to the university is to start a conversation on how the multilateral initiatives she has worked on have dealt with specific issues affecting African descendent groups in Latin America," Brito said. 

Garcia coordinates the gender and diversity portfolio of the southern cone region in support of IDB's efforts to address race, ethnicity and gender issues in Latin America.

Her work at the Gender and Diversity Division of the IDB focuses on generating evidence about persistent disparities, designing and evaluating operations and identifying what works to promote gender and race/ethnic equality in the region.

At the IDB, she has led the inclusion of race and ethnicity in major grant and loan operations in several countries. She is author and collaborator of numerous articles about this theme and is passionate about the work she does in her region.

For more information, please email brito@uark.edu.