Newsletter – n°18 – January 2013
Initiative worth following
The Paris Local and Regional Governments’ Global Agenda for Equality is launchedThe international conference of local elected women, organised in Paris on 31st January and 1st February, ended with the adoption of the Paris Local and Regional Governments’ Global Agenda for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life.
With the percentage of women Mayors below 5% and an average of 20% women Councillors worldwide, the participation of women in local decision making has stagnated since the late eighties.
While there is a common understanding that equal involvement of women is a key issue for achieving democratic and developed societies, the original targets set out in Objective 3 of the MDGs do not appear to be enough. It is essential to promote the political participation of women, particularly at local level, in the international agenda.
The Agenda aims at becoming a strategic tool to increase the respect for equality between women and men in all spheres of decision-making. It is inspired by the Worldwide Declaration on Women in Local Government and the values and principles contained in the European Charter on Equality of Women and Men in local Life.
Over two days, women and men from all areas of society discussed the public policies that need to be implemented in order to increase women’s participation in the local economic and political life.
During a roundtable on the role of women in the access to basic services and innovative financing, Pierre Schapira, Deputy Mayor of Paris and political representative of PLATFORMA, underlined the action of the network, which works with the European institutions in order to facilitate the access of local authorities to European funding. He also reviewed the different programmes that allow capacity building for local and regional authorities in view of the provision of basic services to the population.
The conference, supported by many networks, such as PLATFORMA, was organised at the initiative of Anne Hidalgo, First Deputy Mayor of Paris and president of the UCLG Gender Equality Committee.
