In 2007 three Bulgarian municipalities made the first steps in the implementation of gender mainstreaming at local level in Bulgaria. The Municipalities of Sofia, Veliko Turnovo and Plovdiv as partners of the Center of Women's Studies and Policies took part in the international project "Equality for Local Development: Gender Mainstreaming in Municipalities" (2006-2007).

The promoter of the project, implemented from October 2006 to December 2007, is the the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson in Lithuania. More about the partners.

The project is directly related to the gender dimension of Lisbon strategy for jobs and growth, and Commission's commitment to strengthen gender equality. It will provide broader knowledge on European and national policy on gender equality, improve competences on implementation of gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting methodologies and enhance the promotion of gender equality at local level.

The project aims at fostering sustainable change in local communities by encouraging balanced participation of women and men in social and economic development of their community and increasing analytical and practical capacities of local authorities to implement real gender equality policies.

Its activities include:

• Training in a cycle of 4 seminars to selected municipal staff in all partner countries to provide knowledge about different methodologies of gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting in the daily work of municipalities.
• Surveys, based on the 3R method in order to enable local authorities to collect gender-based information, map and analyse the influence exerted by women and men and investigate the way women and men participate in local activities.
• Study visit for Bulgarian, Lithuanian and Estonian municipal servants to learn good practice and experience from Swedish state and local institutions.
• Roundtables to discuss with the representatives of other municipal administration staff as well as other local municipalities and decision makers on the national level the possibilities to disseminate project results and to promote innovative know-how experiences for the implementation of gender equality.
• International Conference in Vilnius for dissemination of experience at European level. 
• Publications including a Gender Equality Manual aimed at municipal staff, information brochures and web postings on the partners' websites.

The project entitled "Equality for Local Development: Gender Mainstreaming in Municipalities" (2006-2007) is financed and implemented within the Community Programme relating to the Community Framework Strategy in Gender Equality (2001-2005). Sole responsibility for the contents of this publication lies with the authors, the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained there.

The project is supported in part by a grant from Foundation Open Society Institute (Zug).