Intensive Course on Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming for Parliamentary Staff

As part of ODIHR’s support to parliaments in the OSCE region in becoming more gender-sensitive, the Office is co-organizing an action-oriented intensive training course for parliamentary staff tasked with supporting members of parliament, parliamentary working bodies and parliamentary political parties of the National Assembly of Serbia.

The workshop aims to:

• Raise awareness about international standards, good practices and challenges in integrating a gender equality perspective into the parliament’s work, with a focus on parliamentary representation, lawmaking and oversight;
• Build capacity on how better to support members of parliament and parliamentary committees in the assessment of draft legislation from a gender equality perspective; and
• Identify measures which could be taken to improve existing rules and practices related to gender equality advancement, aiming at making the National Аssembly a role model for other public institutions.

The seminar will bring together 25 parliamentary staff (women and men) in middle management positions and who work in the Office of the Speaker of the National Assembly, with the Secretary General, or for parliamentary committees and other working bodies.

Why is this important?

When parliamentary processes, regulations, mechanisms and organizational culture become more gender-sensitive, parliaments are better able to deliver for all women and men. Gender-sensitive parliaments are more representative, able to include a gender perspective in lawmaking and to ensure that gender is taken into account when conducting oversight of the executive. More information on the topic is available in ODIHR’s Realizing Gender Equality in Parliament guide, which features good practices from 46 national parliaments across the OSCE region.

Contact

In case of questions, please reach out to Saša Gavrić, ODIHR’s Gender Officer, sasa.gavric@odihr.pl.