Numerous research shows that EU Structural Funds investments offer huge potential for gender equality, for innovative gender equality initiatives, for true gender mainstreaming. The EU funded projects often have a broader impact on the societies, thus it is essential that the gender dimension within them is well developed. For this to happen, the civil servants behind the programming process and the actual project managers need to have sufficient gender equality knowledge and skills.
It is in this light that the Working group on the Implementation of Horizontal Priorities in EU Structural Funds has organised a meeting with EIGE on 23 January 2014 in Vilnius. During the meeting general discussions on the need for gender equality took place, following EIGE experts' presentations on the Gender Equality Index and Institute's work on gender-based violence. Further on the meeting participants focused on the integration of gender dimension into the EU structural assistance programmes.
The conclusion of the meeting was that gender aspects need to become an integral part of the whole process of planning, designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluation EU funded projects. For this the exchange of good practices, systematic attempts to grow staff's knowledge on gender equality and training their skills to set and achieve gender equality goals is essential.
Having acknowledged these as some of the most important elements of gender equality work in the EU, EIGE works to collect the good practices on gender equality. The Institute attempts to provide support to gender mainstreaming efforts in the Member States by promoting the need for more systematic and effective training on gender mainstreaming.
For those who are specifically interested in developing the gender dimension within ESF programmes the Community of Practice on Gender Mainstreaming developed an elaborated online resource.