Choose language English Français Albanian Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Estonian Finnish Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Irish Italian Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Maltese Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Turkish Ukrainian

Aa+ Aa-

• 
• About the
  Charter
  • The EU and Gender Equality
  • CEMR and gender equality
  • The Charter in brief
  • The text of the Charter
  • The signatories of the Charter
  • About the Observatory
• The Action Plan:
  Step by Step
  • Get informed
  • Consult
  • Get inspired
  • Prioritise
  • Draft
• Good
  Practices
  • Democratic accountability
  • The political role
  • General framework for equality
  • The employer role
  • Public procurement and contracts
  • The service delivery role
  • Planning and sustainable
    development
  • The regulator role
  • Twinning and international
    cooperation
• Methods
  and Evaluation
  • Methods
  • Evaluation
  • Pilot project
• Atlas of Signatories
  of the Charter
  Presentation Find a signatory Create your signatory sheet Update your data

  

Gender equality – a current issue locally and regionally

Note: This article originally appeared on internationalforum.fi

The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities recalls that gender equality is a core value of local and regional democracies, and it is an important task for local and regional authorities to eliminate persistent obstacles to achieve equality.

Also the Council of European Municipalities and Regions CEMR in their International Women’s Day declaration emphasises the importance of local and regional authorities in promoting equality.

On the International Women’s Day 2016 CEMR’s declaration emphasises the following issues:

• Equality should be present in political discussions and legislative preparations.
• Economic equality must be promoted and violence against women must be prevented.
• Refugee women and children’s special needs should be considered during integration.
• Equality for women and girls should be supported globally.

A 10-year anniversary of the Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life

The European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life (’the Charter’) celebrates its 10th anniversary. The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities signed the Charter already in 2006, and recommends that local authorities do the same. All bigger cities in Finland have already signed the Charter.

• At the moment local and regional discussion on equality is extremely important. With the Charter, the discussion on implementing gender equality is brought to the attention of municipalities and joint municipal authorities in their daily work in the midst of major changes, reminds Sirpa Paatero, the Chairperson of the Board of The Association of Local and Regional Authorities.

CEMR, in cooperation with European municipal associations and local authorities, has developed a tool for monitoring the gender equality situation and the realisation of the Charter in local and regional authorities. The tool features indicators for each area of the Charter such as the representation and participation of women in decision-making.

For further information, please contact: Senior Adviser Sinikka Mikola Team Leader, International team International and Swedish-language Affairs The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities +358 50 342 8218, sinikka.mikola@kuntaliitto.fi

More information on CEMR’s Observatory website: http://www.preprod.charter-equality.eu/?lang=en

CEMR’s International Women’s Day declaration:

http://ccre.org/bibliotheques/getFile/975469b7e81b4c588e55c8d1b5bfcef57f1ffa1a

European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life:http://www.ccre.org/docs/charte_egalite_en.pdf