Fostering collaboration on gender budgeting among municipalities in North Macedonia
Two municipalities exchanged good practices and improved their understanding of gender-responsive budgeting to ensure more transparent, inclusive and accountable governance.Date:
The mayors of Kisela Voda, a municipality in the capital Skopje, and Strumica, a city in the south of North Macedonia, organized a meeting in late February to promote the application of gender-responsive policies and budgets at the local level. The meeting was hosted by the Mayor of Strumica, Mr. Kosta Janevski, and provided an opportunity for high-level municipality representatives to exchange best practices and learn from each other’s experience in mainstreaming gender across local programmes.
“We consider the perspective of gender equality throughout our daily work and in different municipal projects, making sure that no one is discriminated against or deprived of the opportunity to benefit from the municipal services,” said Mr. Janevski.
Around 30 local councilors and members of intersectoral working groups on gender equality from the two municipalities joined the two-day training. The goal of the training was to improve understanding and knowledge on gender mainstreaming concepts and application of gender-responsive budgeting in local programme planning and budgeting.
During the training, the participants gained hands-on experience on how to design interventions to close gender gaps in areas under municipal competence.
“We were inspired by the results of the municipality of Strumica in mainstreaming gender across sectoral programmes. That is why we initiated this joint workshop as an opportunity to exchange good practices on gender-responsive budgeting at the local level,” said Jasna Sazdovska, the President of the Commission for Equal Opportunities at the Kisela Voda municipality.
Both municipalities are part of the UN Women programme for promoting gender-responsive policies and budgets “Towards transparent, inclusive and accountable governance in the Republic of North Macedonia”, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency - Sida.