European Consultation on Gender Equality: Bringing together CSOs, practitioners, governments and citizens

International IDEA, together with the Community of Democracies (CoD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) held on 10 November the European Consultation on Gender Equality and Political Empowerment of Women.

The Regional Consultations on Gender Equality and Political Empowerment of Women are platforms designed to allow an open exchange among key stakeholders regarding the trends, challenges and opportunities in the implementation of international conventions, agreements and treaties, as well as specific actions to address the main issues related to the advancement of Gender Equality and the Political Participation of Women.

The European Consultation will seek to identify the main instruments that are set in place in Europe to address the issues related to the broader topic of this initiative. The Consultation will also highlight the challenges as perceived by the international, regional and sub-regional organizations, as well as by Member States and civil society organizations (CSOs,) and will gather the best practices and experiences in the task of advancing gender equality.

This initiative contributes to the implementation of Agenda 2030 and the advancement of its goals 5, 10, 11 and 16, in particular. It will also be instrumental in consolidating policy recommendations on how to better achieve and be more effective/efficient in the advancement of Gender Equality and Political Empowerment of Women.

The European Consultation is attended by representatives from the governments of Serbia, Lithuania and Moldova; from civil society (Hungarian Women’s Lobby, Gender Culture Centre and Swisspeace, among others); from academia (Bulgarian School of Politics, Kobe University); and from regional and international organizations, such as Council of Europe, International IDEA, the Community of Democracies, OSCE, UN Women, UNDP and OHCHR.

This consultation is held at the headquarters of the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, France, with the financial support of the European Commission and the government of the Republic of Korea.

The broader programme of the consultations will have a regional focus with the intention to emphasize on the needs and gaps of each particular region and allow the participation on relevant actors that would not be able to do so on a broader event. The regional focuses will be Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas. In 2016, the regional consultations that have been confirmed will be held back-to-back with the following international events:

• 10 November – in the sidelines of the World Forum for Democracy
• 8-9 December – In the sidelines of the Bali Democracy Forum

The results of the Regional Consultations will be captured in reports summarizing the discussions and including the final recommendations. The key components of the report will be integrated into a Policy Guidebook on Gender and Political Participation of Women to be developed with the input of the regional organizations that are part of the Inter-Regional Dialogue on Democracy (IRDD.)

Official documents of the Regional Consultations:

• Agenda of the European Consultation
• Concept note of the Regional Consultations
• List of Participants – European Consultation

The IRDD is the only platform in the world that allows the regional organizations that are part of the platform to meet, define channels of cooperation and identify synergies to support democracy worldwide. Currently, the following organizations are part of the IRDD: African Union (AU,) Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN,) the Council of Europe (CoE,) the European Union (EU,) the League of Arab States (LAS,) the Organization of American States (OAS,) the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC,) the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF,) the Community of Democracy (CoD) and the United Nations.

For more information about the Inter-Regional Dialogue on Democracy, contact Luis Consuegra or follow us on Facebook.