Advisory and Co-ordination Board for OSCE project on combating gender-based violence in South-Eastern Europe meets

On 4 April 2023, the meeting of the Advisory and Co-ordination Board established in 2021 as part of the OSCE project “Enhancing Criminal Justice Capacities for Combating Gender-based Violence in South-Eastern Europe” took place.

The meeting gathered 18 representatives (4 men, 14 women) from the OSCE Secretariat and its field operations, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Women, the Permanent Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the International Organizations in Vienna, and the Permanent Delegation of Finland to the OSCE, Finland being one of the donor countries.

The objective of the meeting was twofold. Firstly, to update the Board on the implementation of the project, highlighting both the progress made to date and the planned activities for 2023. Secondly, for Board members to share information about their organization’s ongoing and upcoming programmes on combating gender-based violence (GBV) at regional and national levels. Participants welcomed the opportunity to exchange updates with the OSCE project team and each other, and highlighted planned training and awareness activities for 2023 to facilitate co-ordination of respective activities on the topic.

“The Advisory and Co-ordination Board plays a crucial role in enabling the project team to share information and identify synergies with the activities of important partners working in the area. The input the Board provides reflects our shared commitment to tackling GBV in South-Eastern Europe through a comprehensive, victim-centred approached to training and awareness-raising”, said Martha Stickings, Deputy Head of the Strategic Police Matters Unit of the OSCE Secretariat’s Transnational Threats Department.

The project team plans to organize additional bilateral meetings with the organizations represented in the Board to further co-ordinate respective capacity-building on combatting GBV.