Civil servants trained on gender policies and European integration

Gender policies and EU integration was the topic of the day at a recent course on 26 and 27 April organized by the Training Institute of the Public Administration (TIPA) and UNDP. As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the expertise of the public administration on gender equality issues, civil servants learned about introducing gender mainstreaming into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes. The course focuses on how gender mainstreaming is integral to causing positive changes in political, economic, and social life – especially in light of Albania’s EU integration process. Lecturers from the Gender Institute of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tirana University helped to develop the course modules and deliver the training. TIPA offers a series of specialized gender equality courses and works closely with the Gender Institute to share expertise on this often overlooked issue. Civil servants from public administration and key line ministries attended the two-day course and were given tools and comprehensive models in order to mainstream gender equality into policies of their respective institutions. Discussion included the need to understand current Albanian and EU legislation on gender equality issues in order to perform comparative analyses with the global and European legal frameworks. It was agreed that the need to collect sex-disaggregated data – both quantitative and qualitative – is a fundamental process for the creation of a national gender-responsive strategy. Partnerships between the Government and NGOs are also key to the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment – one of the Millennium Development Goals. Albania adopted a law on Gender Equality in July 2004 prohibiting gender discrimination in the labour market and is an important step towards improved gender equality in Albania. However, full implementation of the law requires full attention in order to affect the lives of women. “We have legislation on gender issues designed in line with EU legislation,” said Elona Dhembo, University of Tirana Faculty of Science Lecturer and course module co-author. “The problem is that this legislation only exists on paper, and civil servants know very little about it and the financial packages are poor to make it functional.” Albania is making efforts to approach EU standards, and gender mainstreaming is crucial to the integration process as it is one of the main pillars of EU policy.