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Bringing together civil society in the EU’s neighbouring countries in the name of gender equality
As part of the EU-funded EU4Gender Equality: Reform Helpdesk, NIRAS’s expert team facilitated a forum to discuss East European civil society organisations’ opportunities and challenges in working with gender equality
February 24, 2022
Although gender equality in the six Eastern Partnership Countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – is formally enshrined in the countries’ constitutions and legal systems, the lack of gender mainstreaming inhibits substantive gender equality. The Eastern Partnership is a joint initiative that aims to deepen political and economic relations between the EU and six partnership countries. Part of this collaboration, the EU4Gender Equality: Reform Helpdesk, a project funded by the European Union that runs from 2021-2023, seeks to support governments in the six countries to increase capacity in terms of gender mainstreaming. The NIRAS-led team also works with EU delegations in the six countries to ensure EU involvement and priorities in terms of gender equality.
The team has launched an online library, which is a collection of recent reports covering gender equality and women’s empowerment in the context of the six Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. You find it here.
With its inception last year, the project had a challenging start: in addition to COVID-19, the Eastern Neighbourhood countries witnessed political instability, uprisings, and changes of government. “In Armenia, we are still in the process of reshaping a lot of things. We see that there is a lack of capabilities and resources in the government needed to address the challenges related to gender equality,” says Gohar Shahnazaryan, who is the Key Expert for Armenia. “It has become easier to communicate with the government in terms of gender equality, which is a very encouraging staring point.”
The Helpdesk also assists in the development of policy reforms from a gender-sensitive perspective. Capacity building and training in gender-responsive governance and budgeting are equally essential. “When the project finishes, my hope is that our work will have had a wider, multiplier effect and that more people will care and know about gender equality,” says Gohar.
Nino Janashia, who leads the project’s work in Georgia while coordinating regionally in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, says: “Until now, it has mostly been planning, designing Country Gender Profiles, supporting EU delegations in developing Country-level Implementation Plans (CLIPs), conducting a needs assessment of governmental institutions. However, we are now starting to work with institutions on the implementation of their requests.”
It is important that ownership of assignments is borne by the governmental institutions themselves, in order to ensure the sustainability of the project. The real success of the project will be definable once we have the results - when we see that outputs we deliver are owned and implemented by government institutions themselves.
Nino Janashia, Regional Coordinator, Key Expert and Country Expert for Georgia
The 5 panels centred around the following themes:
- Strategies to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls in the Eastern Neighbourhood;
- Implementing the women, peace, and security agenda in the Eastern Neighbourhood;
- Social and economic empowerment of women and girls: Challenges and opportunities;
- Gendering the green transition and digital transformation: Challenges and opportunities for the Eastern Neighbourhood;
- Rise of anti-human rights movements and threats to civil society in the Eastern Neighbourhood.
Linking CSOs in Eastern Neighbourhood countries
Since September 2021, the team has been organising a two-day online forum, the most recent of which took place in February 2022 under the headline “Gender equality and women’s empowerment in Eastern Partner countries”. As the Helpdesk aims to create an inclusive environment, civil society organisations (CSOs) have become key stakeholders. “We want to actually involve civil society in our work, while supporting civil society organisations. Another ambition was to connect CSOs across the six countries. So we agreed to facilitate the forum and draw on the civil society representatives who we, the team, know from our home countries,” says Nino.
The forum was comprised of five panel discussions with up to 100 participants each, which the team moderated, providing an overview of the given situation as well as theoretical background. CSOs represented by experts and advocates for gender equality, human rights, and democratic transformations were invited to participate. The Team Leader, Oksana Kisselyova, stresses the importance of cooperating with civil society, due to its crucial role in pushing democratic reforms in the Neighbourhood countries: “Gender equality goes hand in hand with democracy. Civil society in the region has great potential in terms of knowledge and expertise in the field of not only gender equality but reforms that are going on in the countries. This potential could be applied by the Helpdesk in the support it provides to governments, EU Delegations, and thereby mainstream gender in policy, projects, and so on.”
Oksana also points to CSOs’ role as watchdogs, providing pressure on governments to fulfil commitments and adopt changes in policy. “That’s why we organised the civil society forum, first of all, to look at the CSOs to understand whom the Helpdesk can continue to work with. I was amazed by the high level of knowledge and expertise of all speakers who presented at the five panels. This forum included discussions on five priority areas according to the EU Gender Action Plan (GAP III) which was adopted in 2020.”
The forum was the first of its kind but is part of a series to ensure cooperation and linkage between the CSOs.
I found it important to talk about challenges that civil society faces. We know that there are many challenges: legislative restrictions, the rise of anti-human rights movements, conservative groups. CSOs are under pressure, especially women’s organisations. Many of the stories we heard were shocking.
Gohar Shahnazaryan, Key Expert and Country Expert for Armenia
On the experience with NIRAS
It is the first time Gohar has worked with NIRAS: “The experience has been very good overall - it is a really great team that we have! Thus far, I have experienced very good support from NIRAS. The team never met in person but works surprisingly well despite the lack of physical interaction. In addition, things are done more efficiently. But of course, there are pros and cons to this online-based model for collaboration.” Nino has worked with NIRAS once before and enjoys the collaboration: “I am still in contact with the Team Leader from my first NIRAS project. I find that NIRAS ensures fruitful working relationships, a very good working environment, and that the staff is always very supportive.”
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