2nd meeting of officials from candidate countries and potential candidates

Providing information to the EU Institutions on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in the candidate countries and potential candidates is one of the tasks assigned to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). In 2013, EIGE was asked to participate in the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) and the Institute commenced a project ‘Preparatory Measures for the participation of candidate countries and potential candidates in EIGE’s work’. The main objective of this work is to strengthen the capacity of candidate countries and potential candidates to comply with the EU policies in the field of gender equality.

To enhance communication and information sharing between EIGE and IPA countries and to develop the strategy for future cooperation several technical meetings are planned for 2013. The first such meeting took place in June in Brussels. During the discussion, officials from enlargement countries expressed an interest in cooperating with EIGE on current or future gender equality projects or activities in their countries, in particular in the areas of:

• combating gender-based violence against women,
• the gender equality index and
• women’s economic and political empowerment.

Within the framework of the project EIGE is organizing a second meeting of officials from enlargement countries that will be held on 6 November 2013 in Istanbul, Turkey. The meeting will be hosted by the General Directorate on the Status of Women which is a key public institution working on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in Turkey and functions as one of the main units under the Ministry of Family and Social Policy of the Republic of Turkey.

Objectives of the Meeting

The main aim of this second meeting of officials from enlargement countries is to continue to foster cooperation and information sharing with EIGE.  The meeting will also serve as an opportunity to:

• inform on EIGE’s IPA project activities, achievements and status;
• continue raising awareness on the importance of improved policies on gender equality and keep this among the priorities of their national administrations;
• discuss country strategy papers and other accession strategies and programmes in order to ensure a gender perspective is included and that gender equality is selected as one of the areas which should be given priority in the enlargement process,
• identify common areas of interest and plan joint activities for the next IPA project in 2014.

Venue

The meeting will take place in Wow Hotel İstanbul and will be held in English.

Agenda (.pdf)