• 2020-03-28

Strengthening Gender Equality in Serbia

The project "Strengtheing Gender Equality in Serbia" was launched in January 2020 when a project team, consisting of experts from the Center for Democracy Foundation and the Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation was formed. Having in mind that one of the objectives of the project is to assist local governments in aligning local employment action plans and local gender equality action plans, 9 municipalities in three districts (South Backa, Zlatibor and Pcinjski) were selected for the implementation of the project.

The project team contacted the selected municipalities, and the organization of meetings of the project team - researchers and representatives of municipalities - started immediately. During February, two meetings were held, in the municipalities of Bečej and Sremski Karlovci; after that a State of emergency was introduced and all other activities were put on "hold". Given the new circumstances and the need to adapt to the situation, other meetings were held over the phone. The project team was meet cordially in all municipalities and with a strong willingness to cooperate, although in most municipalities the state of emergency brought new obligations and new tasks for its employees.. With the kind help of the municipal employees and their personal involvement, the necessary documents were collected and preparation of analisis and guidelines for creation of local action plans in the selected municipalities started. The experience of municipal employees in the implementation of local action plans will be collected through online questionnaires and telephone interviews. Although the circumstances have changed since the launchof the project, new methods and solutions are investigated in order to meet new challenges. In the next three months, the preparation of analisys, guidelines and recommendations for the development of local action plans are planned. Preparation of training materials and curricula with representatives of municipalities and local civil society organizations are also planned.

This project is implemented with the financial assistance of the Balkan Trust for Democracy of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (BTD) and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade.