Development and Gender: Regional Advocacy Report

The International Gender Policy Network (IGPN) released an in-depth regional report on advocacy for development cooperation and gender for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The study was released at the end of 2008 and reports on the current situation for gender equality in development policies in this region. It points to the difficulties women’s rights advocates encounter in their efforts to advance gender equality within European Commission neighbourhood cooperation (ENP) and pre-accession assistance policies, and national governments’ policies. The report resulted in national and regional advocacy recommendations for stakeholders and women’s rights advocates.

The IGPN report also focused on some new EU Member States (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia) as newly emerging donors, by analysing the extent to which their ODA strategies include gender equality. In general, there are no specific measures focused on gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment and no specific funding allocations. And since the ODA strategies of the new EU Member States do not have specific gender indicators, gender impact assessments are difficult and do not lead to improvements in the strategies.

Read more about the report on the WIDE website:
http://www.wide-network.org/index.jsp?id=444
Download the full report from the IGPN website:
http://www.igpn.net/publications.php
Direct link: http://www.igpn.net/download/IGPN%20Regional%20Report%20(Development%20Cooperationa%20and%20Gender).pdf

Source: WIDE Newsletter, No. 4/April 2009, http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/2009_News_4.pdf?id=876