News

Joining forces for gender equality

January 2007

A Community of Practice (CoP) is the driving force that will anchor gender mainstreaming in the programmes that will be implemented during the next Funding Period (2007-2013) of the ESF. Seven Member States have joined forces in a group led by Finland that aims to share and disseminate EQUAL achievements in gender mainstreaming throughout the EU.

Communities of Practice are defined as "groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis." This is exactly what the EQUAL Management Authorities of Finland, Belgium (Flanders), Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Styria have committed themselves to undertaking over the next 16 months. A communication and networking platform is being designed to become the hub for those involved in implementing the ESF at all levels - namely ESF programme managers, gender equality bodies and experts, policy makers and ESF promoters. This platform will be a real gender mainstreaming warehouse, stocking tools and experiences from almost every Member State.

In addition, a number of peer review meetings will involve key players associated with the CoP in the analysis and validation of those good practices that have emerged from EQUAL projects and national thematic networks. These reviews will focus on:

implementing a gender mainstreaming approach in regional development with a special emphasis on employment and inclusion policies (Styria);
overcoming gender stereotypes through media campaigns (Flanders);
empowering enterprises and social partners to implement gender practices (Italy);
capacity building to promote and facilitate gender mainstreaming (Ireland ).

The peer reviews will, in principle, follow the methodology developed under the European Employment Strategy. According to this approach, these learning opportunities bring together practitioners and evaluators from the host country, who are the advocates of the EQUAL good practices, and potential users or decision makers from other Member States, who are the peer reviewers. Thanks to the communication platform that is being established, the outcomes of these meetings will reach out to a much wider group of people who while they will not participate in the face-face-encounters, will be keen to discuss or challenge the statements of advocates and the responses of reviewers.

The group of countries forming the CoP can build on earlier cooperation amongst the Commission and Member States that aimed to promote gender equality. In 2004, most CoP members were part of an ad-hoc Working Group under aegis of the ESF Committee that explored how the EQUAL principles of gender equality and gender mainstreaming could best be integrated the into ESF Operational Programmes (OPs) for 2007-2013. This led to the joint production of a reflection note which considered the relevance of the principles and the advantages to be gained from the integration, whilst at the same time identifying implementation options at Operational Programme level, and highlighting those provisions that must be established in OPs if gender equality and gender mainstreaming activities are to be really successful.

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News Joining forces for gender equality January 2007 A Community of Practice (CoP) is the driving force that will anchor gender mainstreaming in the programmes that will be implemented during the next Funding Period (2007-2013) of the ESF. Seven Member States have joined forces in a group led by Finland that aims to share and disseminate EQUAL achievements in gender mainstreaming throughout the EU. Communities of Practice are defined as "groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis." This is exactly what the EQUAL Management Authorities of Finland, Belgium (Flanders), Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Styria have committed themselves to undertaking over the next 16 months. A communication and networking platform is being designed to become the hub for those involved in implementing the ESF at all levels - namely ESF programme managers, gender equality bodies and experts, policy makers and ESF promoters. This platform will be a real gender mainstreaming warehouse, stocking tools and experiences from almost every Member State. In addition, a number of peer review meetings will involve key players associated with the CoP in the analysis and validation of those good practices that have emerged from EQUAL projects and national thematic networks. These reviews will focus on: implementing a gender mainstreaming approach in regional development with a special emphasis on employment and inclusion policies (Styria); overcoming gender stereotypes through media campaigns (Flanders); empowering enterprises and social partners to implement gender practices (Italy); capacity building to promote and facilitate gender mainstreaming (Ireland ). The peer reviews will, in principle, follow the methodology developed under the European Employment Strategy. According to this approach, these learning opportunities bring together practitioners and evaluators from the host country, who are the advocates of the EQUAL good practices, and potential users or decision makers from other Member States, who are the peer reviewers. Thanks to the communication platform that is being established, the outcomes of these meetings will reach out to a much wider group of people who while they will not participate in the face-face-encounters, will be keen to discuss or challenge the statements of advocates and the responses of reviewers. The group of countries forming the CoP can build on earlier cooperation amongst the Commission and Member States that aimed to promote gender equality. In 2004, most CoP members were part of an ad-hoc Working Group under aegis of the ESF Committee that explored how the EQUAL principles of gender equality and gender mainstreaming could best be integrated the into ESF Operational Programmes (OPs) for 2007-2013. This led to the joint production of a reflection note which considered the relevance of the principles and the advantages to be gained from the integration, whilst at the same time identifying implementation options at Operational Programme level, and highlighting those provisions that must be established in OPs if gender equality and gender mainstreaming activities are to be really successful. Top	Home page Activities & results How does EQUAL work? EQUAL in the Member States News All news Newsletter Useful links

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