News

Creating win-win-situations in European Regions

May 2007

Gender mainstreaming (GM) applied in a systematic way to regional and local policies can make everybody win: citizens, small local communities, public and private companies and organisations, big cities and even whole regions. This was the main message that emerged from the Peer Review "Gender Mainstreaming: a Tool for Change" held in Graz, the capital of Styria, on 9-10 May 2007.

Organised in the framework of the European Community of Practice on Gender Mainstreaming the Peer Review was aimed at key people concerned with the implementation of ESF programmes as well as stakeholders representing the social partners, gender equality bodies, and NGOs. The event brought together representatives of national, regional and local governments, employment services and private companies from nine EU Member States.

In his opening address Franz Voves, Styria's Governor, emphasised how much importance his Regional Government attaches to a comprehensive approach to gender equality. "Gender mainstreaming has created win-win situations which have improved the gender equality performance of public authorities, implementers of active labour market policies and private companies", he said, adding that" at the same time the efficiency of their governance of budgets, programmes and services or – in the case of enterprises - their productivity and competitiveness was optimised".

Concept and methods of this approach are based on the achievements of two EQUAL Development Partnerships, Just GeM and POPUPGEM. They succeeded to firmly anchor GM in policies and practices throughout this Austrian region.

From left to right, Tatjana Kaltenbeck-Michl (City of Graz), Gerhard Braeunling (European Commission), Bettina Vollath, Lenia Samuel, Lt-General Claes-Göran Fant, Suzanne Seeland (expert), Barbara Prammer & Heide Cortolezis (Organising team).

Talking shop in the workshops

Discussions in four parallel workshops enabled decision-makers and practitioners to share good practices and to learn from their peers. Led by high level key players the workshops provided detailed insights of the Styrian GM model and explored possibilities of further exchange and transnational cooperation.

The first workshop focusing on regional governments, demonstrated how, based on a unanimous decision of the Styrian Government, GM is becoming an integral aspect of all portfolios and policy fields. Two gender mainstreaming experts will lead and monitor this process over a period of three years. Their task is also to build gender competencies through staff training at all levels and to launch pilot projects as springboards for dissemination of equality goals and strategies. "We will establish a sustainable and powerful structure in Styria to guarantee that everything we will start (...) will go on and the achievements will be broadened", said Bettina Vollath, the Regional Minister for Education, Youth and Women. She stressed that "this structure will take care that gender mainstreaming will continue to be part of mainstream policies". The contribution of her colleague María del Mar Serna Calvo, Minister of Labour in the Spanish Region of Catalonia, clearly indicated a similarly strong commitment, although the strategies are different. This is also true for the other regions involved in this workshop. Yet, despite the differences their representatives agreed that there is no policy area that can be labelled as "gender neutral" and that integrating GM as a cross-cutting principle is a long-term process that requires not only the firm backing from the top and a sound legal framework, but also extra resources.

Local authorities were centre stage in the second workshop, which assembled representatives from seven cities, counties and relevant umbrella organisations. Martin Haidvogel, the Chief Executive of municipal administration in Graz presented the city's approach to GM. It incorporates the gender dimension into personnel policies as well as into all services and products. A steering committee consisting of top level decision-makers is in charge of formulating and monitoring the implementation of equality goals. The City uses the Balanced Scorecard system as the central instrument of quality management and good governance.

The following discussion revealed similarities and differences when it comes to GM in local governments. It appears that big cities such as Paris, whose gender equality office was presented in the workshop, are in a better position to introduce GM than medium sized or small local communities. This is particularly due to the management systems of metropolitan areas, into which gender aspects can be integrated, but also to higher budgets and larger pools of human resources. Small towns often don't use strategic planning, which makes it more difficult to adopt GM in a systematic way. However, networks between small towns and counties can help to address the major challenges of gender equality policies such as the lack of care services for children and other dependants or the persisting gender segregation on the labour market. Contributions from workshop participants showed the potential of such joint ventures and the need to facilitate exchange and support amongst peers.

Gender mainstreaming in national and regional employment services was at the heart of the third workshop. Herta Kindermann-Wlasak, Deputy Director of the Styrian Regional Employment Office (AMS) explained how GM is implemented in her organisation. After 30 years of experience with positive actions for women in Styrian employment and training policies, the AMS is now integrating the gender dimension in all its main tasks: counselling, guidance, training and financial support for job seekers as well as services for employers. Training for all categories of personnel has gradually generated gender know-how and competencies. According to the Deputy Director, GM has enabled smarter planning and measures that are more focused on the needs of female and male target groups. "Clearly", she said, "GM led to better governance. For instance, before we used GM, for the AMS older workers were perceived as aged 55 and beyond. This target group has priority in our new ESF programmes, and a thorough gender analysis indicated that this definition is only true for men. Women are considered as older and therefore difficult to place in the job market already from the age of 45. This information allows us to offer more effective training and support for both women and men – a thus - better job opportunities." This AMS example was complimented by good practices from other regions and Member States. Workshop participants expressed an urgent need to explore areas of common concern. For instance, they found that progress in terms of gender equality should not only be measured through quantitative annual targets. Qualitative effects are as important as figures, they argued. They all pushed for further cooperation to enhance exchange, in particular, to assess the qualitative dimension of GM effects and to use the results for improved planning and management of ESF financed labour market policies.

In workshop 4, top executives from private sector companies demonstrated the business advantages of applying GM to their management and personnel development systems. Mario Müller, process and quality manager at SFL Technologies and Manfred Kainz, owner/manager of TCM International, both partners in the EQUAL project POPUPGEM emphasised the relevance of thorough analyses of the situation of departure. In their case the analyses revealed significant gender gaps and the companies set overall objectives and targets for the access of women to all jobs and positions, their promotion in technical occupations and for increasing female participation in higher management positions. Implementation involved gender budgeting concerning finances earmarked for training, the development of a gender fair assessment centre and working time arrangements that facilitate the return of women and men who have been on parental leave. According to these Styrian champions GM proved to be a successful strategy to mitigate the consequences of demographic change and to boost productivity. However, they feel it remains difficult to attract women to blue collar jobs in staunch male domains such the building industry, and particularly construction sites. They were keen to learn about the awareness raising campaigns targeting young women and practical solutions to the eternal problem of changing rooms and toilets for women, developed, thanks to EQUAL, by companies and employer organisations in other Member States. Peers in this workshop also came from the banking sector, the car and high tech industry. Across the board there was consent that GM should stem from the firm conviction of employers that their employees are the most important asset for business development and growth, and that this includes valuing and using the potential of women.

Looking forward to further cooperation and new horizons

Introduced by Barbara Prammer, the President of Austria's National Parliament, the final plenary session provided glimpses of workshop outcomes. A common feature of those short reports was that participants are very interested to continue their discussions and to reinforce the exchange of good practices and tools. The Communication Platform that is being developed to facilitate this transnational cooperation was welcomed as a useful tool.

In her speech Lenia Samuel, Deputy Director General at the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, gave an overview of the situation of equality between women and men in Europe and the most recent policy developments. She also highlighted the role of the European Social Fund to support EU and national gender equality policies and provided information on how Commission and Member States take account of gender equality in the preparation of the new programming period 2007- 2013. Lenia Samuel valued the innovative outcomes of EQUAL related to gender mainstreaming and expressed her positive expectations concerning the Action Plan for transnational cooperation proposed by the Commission: "To help facilitate learning from one another, we have made transnational cooperation not only a priority in the ESF, but an obligation", she said. "This is especially relevant for gender mainstreaming where there is so much knowledge and experience that needs to be exchanged throughout the EU." She explained that the Action Plan will provide support through a number of mechanisms, including the exchanges of experience, awareness-raising activities, events, and networking of Member States and regions and mentioned that gender mainstreaming is proposed to become one of the first networks to be offered support.

Last but not least, the final plenary session of the Graz Peer Review undertook to broaden horizons towards implementing gender mainstreaming in a particularly difficult male domain. Lt-General Clas-Göran Fant, Director of Plans and Policy in the Swedish Armed forces spoke about the challenges and successes of creating a gender balance in all ranks and positions and of integrating the dimension of gender into Swedish peace keeping missions. "Women are actors who must participate in all stages of peace efforts, including prevention of armed conflicts", he said and continued that "they must be included to define the problems, define the need for protection, make analyses, present proposals and solutions, and to negotiate and carry out decisions. This is stated very clearly in UNSCR 1325 "Women, Peace and Security" which the Swedish Armed Forces works hard to implement." With a whole range of GM actions the EQUAL Development Partnership Genderforce plays an important role in this endeavour.

Similar to the two Styrian EQUAL projects Genderforce has triggered a sustainable process of change whose present and future achievements should be shared amongst key players in more and more regions and Member States. The Gender Mainstreaming Community of Practice is a crucial and encouraging step in this direction.