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A challenging production process but one with great outcomes
February 2007
The transnational products and tools generated by the coming together
of EQUAL Development Partnerships (DPs), which operate in different Member States, are a
special legacy of this Community Initiative. In the field of gender equality, these policy
recommendations, teaching and training materials, learning and counselling tools or awareness
raising strategies clearly demonstrate the added-value of transnational cooperation.
What is true for EQUAL Transnational Partnerships (TPs) is
true for their outcomes: the emerging benefits add up to more than the sum of
their individual activities. This is quite visible in the first wave of products
that is now in the
EQUAL Products Database and includes a range of such transnational outputs.
These outputs fall into different categories and have different production
histories and challenges. There are, for instance, good practice guides
illustrating the different approaches of DPs to dismantling the major obstacles
to gender equality. However, by being presented in combination and also being
accompanied by an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses in specific policy
contexts, the guides gain a new and more holistic quality and a real European
dimension. The
Novatura Best Practice Manual and the
European Guidelines to Mentoring are excellent examples of this kind of
transnational tool.
Contributions of individual DPs which shared successful
strategies and concepts developed in their own countries, both inside and
outside EQUAL, have played an important role. Introducing topics from other
countries into the on-going discussions of TPs has triggered new ideas and
further development. This is true for the concise and very detailed summary of
French time policies that were geared to improving the balance between work
and private life. This document not only stimulated a well-informed debate in a
TP that linking Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and France, but also
some of these countries have now taken the first steps in following these French
examples.
Other TPs have not relied on existing national practice
but have jointly produced innovative plans and schemes from scratch. These
include a
virtual exhibition illustrating the role of women
in the building sector, since the beginning of the 20th century, and emphasising
the future employment opportunities that are available to women. Another example
is the
equal pay campaigns that were elaborated transnationally, and implemented
nationally. All these highly creative and challenging processes have yielded
products that have a huge potential to spark off ideas for future projects,
whilst at the same time, providing advice on how to take such lines of action.
Exploring the production history often reveals how much common dedication and
work has fostered intercultural learning and understanding, which is the
objective, and as has been proven in EQUAL, the result of transnational
cooperation.
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