E-QUALITY: New e-tools to develop skills and a strengthened culture of gender equality within municipal administrations

The E-QUALITY project has been conceived to favour the conditions for a wider action in gender culture and gender equality in the policy making sphere. The project moves from a general necessity of raising awareness on women’s position in society, promoting their social inclusion, civic engagement and participation. In particular, project partners have witnessed that, in spite of the EU being a global forerunner in the promotion of gender quality-oriented policies, small and medium-sized public administrations all over the continent are often poorly equipped in terms of knowledge and skills to actually embrace the EU legislation and the gender equality strategies. This results in difficulties on the part of public administrations in many EU countries to produce, implement and review effective policies in crucial fields like equal education, healthcare access, training and equal job opportunities.

The general objective of the project is to create the conditions for a continuum of actions on gender culture at the political level in order to improve and increase awareness of the position of women in society, promoting their social inclusion, civic engagement and participation. At a practical level, this is reflected in promoting greater knowledge and awareness of public bodies of the EU Gender Equality Strategy, as well as of the possibilities of its concrete implementation in local policies. To achieve the overall objective of bringing about significant change, the project set two specific objectives, which are - to increase the knowledge of municipal administrators and employees on issues related to gender culture; - to develop practical tools to support public authorities in achieving gender equality and to contribute to social and spatial planning by disseminating the project results.

To equip the project target groups with skills, knowledge and competencies on gender-related themes, the following actions have been implemented: - one Cross-Fertilization Training aimed for experts to elaborate a training curricula consisting of 5 thematic modules on gender equality, by means of knowledge exchange and pooling of competencies; - Elaboration of a New training model (PR1) addressed to municipal employees and administrators based on the themes of Objective 5 of the UN Agenda - Production of a new digital platform (PR2) as a learning tool for municipal employees on how to pursue gender equality in policy making. In addition to hosting the PR1 training modules, the platform also offers a plurality of additional resources for users to browse training guidelines, successful real life cases, best practices and public policies on the topic from all project countries - one 5-day transnational training on gender equality for municipalities, which directly involved municipal staff from different towns in the project countries to concretely test the developed training modules (PR1) and expand their skills. - 5 multiplier events (1 per project country) aimed to disseminate the project results among target audiences.

E-QUALITY developed 2 main results: 1) a NEW TRAINING CURRICULA FOR PUBLIC BODIES specifically addressed to provide their employees with new knowledge and skills on gender equality (PR1) 2) a DIGITAL INTERACTIVE PLATFORM TO ACHIEVE GENDER EQUALITY containing guidelines and best practices for European municipalities and public bodies on how to train public workers in order to reach the EU Agenda for gender equality and EU regulations, recommendations and policies. Above-mentioned results have led to the following additional results in terms of outcome: a) Providing municipalities and their employees with useful tools and skills to address gender and women's equality issues within their working environment; b) Providing municipalities and their employees with new tools and skills to address gender issues, women's equality and equal opportunities not only within their working environment but also by promoting civil society actions and initiatives; c) Increasing the soft and hard skills of municipal employees that will be useful to upscale their working performance, especially for those who work on planning policies affecting women’s participation in society, access to services and equal opportunities.