Milana Lazić works at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), managing the “Assistance to European Union (EU) Pre-Accession” project. This project works with EU potential and candidate countries in the Western Balkans and Turkey to make gender equality more visible in the region with a focus on improving how gender equality is monitored across public policies, legislation, and in practice. EIGE provides technical expertise to relevant countries, especially in developing national Gender Equality Indices. Lazić spoke with UN Women about the Gender Equality Index and EIGE’s support to the countries in the region.

In line with the G20 Agenda for 2021 and following up on the G20 EMPOWER second plenary session, which took place in May 2021, both chaired by Italy, UN Women in Kosovo, the Embassy of Italy in Pristina and the Ministry of Justice organized a joint event aimed at addressing the needs of survivors of domestic and gender-based violence in all COVID-19 economic recovery plans.

Dr. Helmut Berger, Head of Austrian Parliamentary Budget Office, recently briefed Albanian Members of Parliament (MPs) on how his office operates and measures gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) performance. In Albania, GRB principles are part of the medium term and annual budget programming processes.

One year after seven municipalities in Albania formally confirmed their commitment to gender equality by signing the European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life, five of them, supported by UN Women, have prepared Gender Equality Action Plans. The municipal councils of Tirana, Elbasan and Durres have already approved their Action Plans.

Aliona Vdovenko is acting head of the village and leader of a women’s community self-help group “Fiesta” in Novomykolaivka, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Only 450 people reside in Novomykolayivka village and regional level budget-planning often doesn’t take into account the needs of those who live in small villages. Vdovenko advocates for the allocation of necessary resources for small villages, including hers, especially in line with the decentralization reform – one of the key reforms in Ukraine which aims to transfer power, resources, and responsibility from the executive branch to the local self-government.

Women activists meet MPs and government officials on Rural Women’s Day to discuss barriers faced by rural women in fully participating in the national development processes.

UN Women brings Members of Parliament (MPs) from South-east Europe and Moldova to Sweden to learn first-hand about making gender equality central to government policies and budgets.

UN Women in collaboration with the National Democratic Institute and OSCE strives to strengthen potential of civil servants to promote gender equality in Kazakhstan through development, implementation and monitoring gender-oriented policies in social, economic and other sectors. Supporting this, on September 18-20, 2012 UN Women together with the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan conducted a joint seminar “Introduction to gender studies”.