Realizing Gender Equality in and by Parliaments in Europe and Central Asia: Review Workshop

National parliaments, as essential democratic institutions, are uniquely placed to champion progress towards, and full achievement of, gender equality in politics and all other spheres of public and private life. This crucial role for parliaments has also been well entrenched in international conventions and commitments, including in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, the 30th anniversary of which we mark this year.

The concept of ‘gender-sensitive parliaments’ has become the clearest expression of parliaments’ responsibility to promote and achieve gender equality. All around North America, Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, many national parliaments, independently, or with support of academia, civil society or international partners, have undertaken concrete actions and steps, to implement ‘gender-sensitive parliaments’ commitments into national parliamentary realities, aiming at advancing women’s presence but also improving gender-sensitive lawmaking and parliamentary oversight. In order to learn from the current achievements and shortcomings, ODIHR and partners are running a review workshop.

Workshop objectives

• Facilitate peer-to-peer learning among representatives of national parliaments on how they have enhanced and implemented the ‘gender-sensitive parliaments’ agenda in their national context and how diverse barriers have been overcome
• Increase awareness on the ‘gender-sensitive parliaments’ agenda and potential new avenues for promoting gender equality, including through engaging men parliamentarians as transformative actors for gender equality
• Discussing and endorsing “Helsinki Principles on Gender-sensitive parliaments in the OSCE region”, as a reminder on the gender-sensitive parliaments agenda to the OSCE states and parliaments

Why is it important?

When parliamentary processes, regulations, mechanisms, and organizational culture become more gender-sensitive, parliaments are able to deliver better for all women and men.

Gender-sensitive parliaments are more representative, able to include a gender perspective in lawmaking, and make sure that gender is taken into account when conducting oversight of the executive branch.

You can learn more about this topic in ODIHR’s guide “Realizing Gender Equality in Parliament”, with good practices from 46 OSCE national parliaments, available in English, Russian and Montenegrin.

Contact

In case of questions, please reach out to Saša Gavrić, ODIHR’s Adviser on Gender Issues, sasa.gavric@odihr.pl.

Registration

By invitation only.