EUVP visit story - Patricia Lizeth Bustamante Hernández

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Today, we take a look back at the EUVP visit of Ms Patricia Lizeth Bustamante Hernández from Mexico who visited the European Institutions last February.

Ms Bustamante Hernández is a talented civil servant responsible for cooperation with the European Union (EU) within the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both the EU Delegation in Mexico and the EUVP were truly impressed by the distinguished career she has led in AMEXCID since 2011 and her current professional activities.

Among other important responsibilities, Ms Bustamante Hernández contributed to the management of the coordination and implementation of the Social Cohesion Laboratory II; the bilateral programme of cooperation between Mexico and the EU which aims to strengthen social cohesion in Mexico through structural reforms designed to improve access to justice, human rights, security, employment and basic public services.

This impressive profile made Ms Bustamante Hernández an ideal candidate to undertake an EUVP visit which could support her professionally even further. In her own words, an EUVP visit was the opportunity to ‘learn about the European experience in regional integration, as well as to understand thoroughly the public policies that have made the European Union a benchmark in various innovative themes’ such as human rights, migration and climate change.

Ms Bustamante Hernández’s visit was especially important in the context of Mexico and the EU entering a ‘new stage of cooperation’ and, as strategic partners, exploring ‘innovative financing mechanisms, new opportunities for cooperation, regional cooperation schemes and specific instruments of technical cooperation’ to implement projects and initiatives contributing to the development of countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It was, therefore, essential for Ms Bustamante Hernández to meet EU officials to better understand ‘their vision regarding this new stage of cooperation’ and identify areas of future work.

The EUVP Team put together an engaging 5-day programme of meetings tailor-made to her interests. This programme included meetings with EU officials responsible for relations with Mexico and regional partners, which gave Ms Bustamante Hernández the opportunity to discuss the new Mexican government’s framework of regional cooperation and the EU’s support via its regional programme on social cohesion for Latin America.

Ms Bustamante Hernández’s programme also featured thematic appointments with representatives from the Directorate-General for International Development and Cooperation of the European Commission (DG DEVCO), the Secretariat of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament and the Human Rights Division in the European External Action Service (EEAS), among many others. These meetings allowed in-depth conversations to take place on the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights, how to achieve equality of opportunities in the social and labour fields and the EU’s approach to collaborating with civil society organisations in the policy-making process.

Ms Bustamante Hernández reported that the programme had been a very positive and ‘enriching experience both personally and professionally’. A key benefit of the visit was to help her ‘locate areas of cooperation where the European Union could collaborate with Mexico on issues of mutual interest’. Ms Bustamante Hernández also agreed with many other EUVP visitors that she was able to ‘learn a lot about the functioning of the European Union, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament’. Importantly, she found it extremely interesting to get to know the fellow EUVP visitors who undertook their EUVP visit during that same week, and share experiences on how their respective line of work interacted with EU issues.

We would like to sincerely thank all the interlocutors, the EU Delegation in Mexico and Ms Bustamante Hernández for their professionalism, kind cooperation and making this productive visit possible. We would also like to welcome Ms Bustamante Hernández to our ever-growing group of EUVP Alumni, looking forward to further cooperation on the dedicated EUVP Alumni platform.

Thank you and see EU soon!