A European Community of Practice

During the past few years Gender Equality has become a more and more important issue within the political agenda of the European Union. The Equal Community Initiative, which formed part of the ESF (European Social Fund), was aimed at developing new methods against all forms of discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market within national and transnational partnerships. The evaluation of this initiative showed, that many good practices were developed that can be used as models for mainstreaming Gender Equality within the ESF programmes in the future.

In order to strengthen equalization and Gender Mainstreaming in the new program period (2007-2013) and to discuss, bundle, secure and spread the experiences, the good examples, the effective methods and approaches and the knowledge acquired so far, the Community of Practice (CoP) on Gender Mainstreaming was implemented.

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.

We are working together at face-to-face events, but even more via this communication platform which has been 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.

So this platform provides its geographically dispersed CoP members with the facility to discuss and review Gender Mainstreaming products and tools as well as relevant issues on Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming in discussion forums and chats, to up- and download resources, to share information on activities/events in the field of Gender Mainstreaming and to provide links to other relevant websites. This platform will be a real Gender Mainstreaming warehouse, stocking tools and experiences from almost every Member State.

How do we define Gender Mainstreaming?

One of the most used definitions for Gender Mainstreaming comes form the Council of Europe (1998): “Gender mainstreaming is the (re)organisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies, at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policymaking.”

 The European Commission defines Gender Mainstreaming in the following way:

"Gender mainstreaming is the integration of the gender perspective into every stage of policy processes – design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation – with a view to promoting equality between women and men. It means assessing how policies impact on the life and position of both women and men – and taking responsibility to re-address them if necessary. This is the way to make gender equality a concrete reality in the lives of women and men creating space for everyone within the organisations as well as in communities - to contribute to the process of articulating a shared vision of sustainable human development and translating it into reality." (see:http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/gender_equality/gender_)

Gender Mainstreaming does not replace positive actions for women. The European Union recommends the continuation of the dual track - Gender Mainstreaming plus specific actions to advance women - because positive actions for women are one way to compensate for existing inequalities.
 
*Gender Equality means structures and decision-making-processes neither privilege nor discriminate women or men because of their gender roles regarding

 So Gender Mainstreaming is …