The Conference aimed at lobbying at all levels of governance for gender mainstreaming as a mandatory process in the perspective of Bulgaria’s accession to EU. The conference also put an emphasis on the partnerships between different institutions and organizations in gender mainstreaming and informal networking with regard to applying the mechanisms of gender mainstreaming  in all spheres of life. Participants in the event were 92 decision makers from the central and local governments, trade unions, employers’ organizations, representatives of the NGO sector as well as experts from Romania, Italy, Holland, Serbia and Macedonia.

The Conference was opened by Ms. Tatyana Kmetova, Executive Director of CWSP and project manager. Greetings on behalf of the donor CIDA were delivered by Mr. Paul Roche, Political Counsellor and Coordinator of the Technical Cooperation Section of the Canadian Embassy, Bucharest and Sofia and Ms. Ligia Marincus, Project Officer of the Section. On the part of Bulgarian institutions the participants were addressed by Ms. Lilly Abadjieva, Head of the Sector on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Mr. lalko Dulevski, President of the Economic and Social Council of Bulgaria, as well by the leaders of the partner organizations on this project – Mr. Konstantin Trenchev, President of the Confederation of Labour “Podkrepa”, Ms. Margarita Petkova, mayor of Ihtiman Municipality (NAMRB) and Mr. Aleksander Tonkov, Board Member of BARDA.

The agenda included a presentation of the project and its results and the contribution of the partners. The key note presentations focused the achievements of mainstreaming gender in the countries of EU and Bulgaria. The presentations of the guests from Romania, Italy and Holland describing their successful practices and experience in gender mainstreaming provoked comments and follow-up discussion.

In the final panel the partners presented ideas for mainstreaming gender in their organizations as a result of the joint work between the partners during the trainings, implemented within the project. The Women’s Union proposed initiating a joint campaign to support the ratification of Convention 156 of the International Labour Organization concerning workers with family responsibilities. BARDA presented practical tools for including gender indicators in the logical frame of a project, while NSORB shared their experience at the local authorities’ level.

The International Expert Meeting on 8 July with experts – partners and specialists on gender mainstreaming from SEE (Romania, Serbia, Macedonia) and EU Member States (Italy and Holland), aimed at creating participatory models at different levels and presenting good practices and ideas for further development and implementation of gender mainstreaming policies as well as promoting models and good practices of different organizations and institutions in SEE countries. The participants also discussed prospective future common initiatives.

The materials from the Conference and the Expert Meeting can be found here in pdf format.

See also: pictures from the Conference and Expert Meeting

This page has been developed with financial contribution from the Canadian International development Agency (CIDA) through the Governance Support Program.

 

The opinions expressed here belong to the Center of Women’s Studies and Policies (CWSP) and do not reflect the official position of CIDA.