Project "Realisation of gender-aware politics" aims at advancing conditions for achieving gender equality through ensuring that the gender-sensitive politics on local level would be implemented, and providing education and empowerment of individuals to enable them to become active promoters of gender equality politics in their communities and on their working places. Also, one of the important goals of this project is to link civil sector and political actors in implementation of gender-aware politics

On this project, CESI directly co-operated with the Governmental Office for Gender Equality. Within the project educational activities were conducted, manual was created and published and the conference was organised in order to put together experiences from seminars held so far and experiences of newly established and already established committees.

Activities

Within educational part of the project, we have organised total of four seminars, two modules for two groups of participants entitled "Implementation of Gender Mainstreaming – Parts I and II". For members of committees from counties of Istria, Primorje – Gorski Kotar, Zadar, Šibenik-Knin, Split-Dalmatia, and Dubrovnik – Neretva it was held in Šibenik, September 3-5, 2004 and in Petrčani, near Zadar, November 12-14, 2004. For counties of Karlovac, Vukovar – Srijem, Osijek – Baranja, Međimurje, Slavonski Brod – Posavina, Bjelovar – Bilogora, Krapina – Zagorje, Požega – Slavonia, Zagreb, Varaždin, Sisak – Moslavina, Koprivnica – Križevci and Virovitica – Podravina, it was organised in Sisak, September 10-12, 2004, and in Osijek, December 3-5, 2004.

The towns in which the seminars were organised were chosen as they did not have county committees for gender equality, or they were in the process of founding those bodies. Therefore, we wanted to induce gender equality topic in those communities. As the emphasis was on development, promotion and implementation of the co-operation between sectors (non-governmental and political), we have included in the seminar members of the county committees for gender equality, co-ordinators for gender equality from state administration bodies, and representatives of non-governmental organisations working on promotion of gender equality in their communities.

Seminar topics served as basis for introduction to and understanding of gender-aware politics, Law on Gender Equality, and implementation of National Strategy for Promotion of Gender Equality. Participants were given the opportunity to participate in lectures and presentations, to participate in workshops with topics such as basic terms and concepts of gender equality, national mechanisms for achieving gender equality, institutional mechanisms on local level, financing of county committees, women and power, women's participation in politics, women on labour market, women's (in)visibility in social and political life, gender equality and integration policy in Croatia, and planning Committee's working programmes, in co-operation with associations.

The lecturers on the seminar

• Bojana Genov, Women's Network Croatia co-ordinator
• Katarina Ivanković Knežević, senior adviser, Government of the Republic of Croatia's Office for Gender Equality
• Erma Ivoš – professor, Zadar University
• Nada Kerovec – associate expert, Government of the Republic of Croatia's Office for Gender Equality
• Gordana Lukač – Koritnik, Ombudswoman for Gender Equality
• Biserka Momčinović – Centre for Civic Initiatives Poreč co-ordinator and member of Istria County Committee for Gender Equality
• Mladenka Morović – senior adviser, Ombudswoman for Gender Equality Office
• Gordana Sobol – The Parliament of the Republic of Croatia's Committee for Gender Equality, Chairwomen
• Helena Štimac Radin – the head of the Government of the Republic of Croatia's Office for Gender Equality
• Inga Tomić Koludrović – professor, Zadar University
• Sanja Cesar, CESI, president
• Maja Dubljević, CESI, project associate
• Anamarija Gospočić, CESI, project leader
• Amir Hodžić, CESI, associate expert
• Gordana Obradović-Dragišić, CESI, project consultant

Results

At the end of each seminar, conclusions were passed, and disseminated among all participants, and to the county heads in person. The conclusions were passed after consideration of the county committees for gender equality work, co-operation among non-governmental organisations and county committees, and certain actions and co-ordination of work of committees, non-governmental organisations and Governmental Office for Gender Equality.

One of the most important results achieved, i.e. encouraged through organisation and conducting the seminar is establishing new county committees in 18 counties, out of 21.

Results of the project are greater awareness on possibilities of action of each committee, mechanisms of implementation of gender mainstreaming on institutional level, and possibility of joint projects between local committees and non-governmental organisations in order to promote women's human rights and equality issues. Also, when establishing county committees after attending the seminars, women coming from non-governmental organisations, and independent experts, working on gender equality promotion in their cities were also included. The participation rate at the seminar has revealed that there are great needs and interest for implementation of gender equality at local level. Total of 126 persons has participated in the seminars.

The questionnaire was used for seminar evaluation purposes. The evaluation has revealed that the seminar participants thought that the seminar programmes were excellent and very good, as well as selection of lecturers and certain topics. They find the topics to be useful for their future work on the gender equality issues. Local media (newspapers, radio, television) have reported on the seminars. Guests at the seminar openings have included mayor of Šibenik, parliament deputies, representatives of the Parliament's committees for minority and gender equality, and of city administration.

County committees conducted campaigns for increasing number of women candidates in local government bodies for the local elections (15th of May 2005). Campaigns consisted of visits to local political parties and bringing their attention to Gender Equality Act, article 15, and National Strategy for Promotion of Gender Equality. They organised round tables, public discussions, radio shows and press – conferences. They also analysed election lists and portion of women on these lists and informed the local community on the findings through media and press-conferences. This programme has been presented in the publication "Short Guide through CEDAW", published by the Office for Gender Equality on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women - CEDAW.

Conference

The final part of the project was conference entitled "The Realisation of Gender-mainstreaming at the Local Level", organized by CESI and Governmental Office for Gender Equality, that was held in Pula from 22nd until 24th of April 2005. The purpose of the conference was evaluation of previous work of counties' gender equality committees and exchange of experiences of committees' members, members of NGO's and Office for Gender Equality.

In addition, on the conference, the members of counties' committees worked on the proposals for new National Strategy for Promotion of Gender Equality (2006 – 2010) with the purpose of defining the subject areas: founding, authority, constitution and scope of work of county committees. On the press-conference, participants presented the following conclusions from the conference:

• Coordination of county gender committees has been founded with the purpose of improvement and harmonization of executing gender equality politics on the local level.
• In organisation of the Office for Gender Equality, Coordination will meet when required and at least twice a year. Presidents of counties' committees will submit work reports to the Office for Gender Equality.
• Counties' committees will make analysis of women's participation on election lists for local and regional government bodies and inform the public on the findings.
• Proposal for new National Strategy for Promotion of Gender Equality (2006-2010) has to include prescriptions on role, goals, authorities, scope of action, financing, founding and other important prescriptions for the functioning of counties' committees.

The conference was financially supported by Norwegian Embassy and County of Istria.

"Gender Perspective in Politics and Practice"

CESI published manual entitled "Gender Perspective in Politics and Practice". Manual covers the following themes: position of women in the society – social visibility of women; gender mainstreaming – basic concepts; legal and institutional frame of gender equality in the Republic of Croatia; analysis of the current situation and needs assesment; gender budgeting; co-operation between NGO's and gender equality committees and foreign experiences of gender mainstreaming. [ See more… " ]

Manual is published and is printed in 800 copies and distributed throughout Croatia to all members of commissions for gender equality at all levels, local governments, coordinators for gender equality in ministries and state governing bodies, and also to non-governmental organizations.

Promotion was organized on June 20 2005. in European House, and public and media campaign organized. The presenters on the promotion were Dubravka Šimonović – from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Snježana Vasiljević from Faculty of Law, Karmela Horvat president of county commission for gender equality from Međimurska County (project participant), Gordana Obradović Dragišić – author of Manual and Anamarija Gospočić – project coordinator.

Manual is produced in cooperation with Office for Gender Equality, with financial support form The Balkan Trust Fund and Royal Netherlands Embassy, Zagreb.