ESF/No.48 Affirming Gender Mainstreaming at a National Level

The objective of the project ESF/No.48 Affirming Gender Mainstreaming at a National Level is to help increase the female employment rate, and as a result, increasing the Maltese working population, both in terms of quantity and quality.  It addresses direct and indirect discrimination and focuses its efforts at promoting equality in all spheres of activity for both women and men.  This project is a follow-up project to ESF/No. 23 Gender Mainstreaming – The Way Forward.  It builds on the concept of gender mainstreaming.  Affirming gender mainstreaming at a National Level aims to affirm gender mainstreaming in both the public and private sector.

Funding - This project is funded partially by EU Funds and co – financed by the Government of Malta.  75% is funded by the Structural Funds Programme for Malta 2004-2006 and 25% is funded by the Government of Malta.

Aims/Objectives
This project is fully dedicated towards the increase of equal opportunities for all as it strives to make a significant step in achieving gender equality.  It aims at providing directors, policy makers, human resource managers and equality bodies with the impetus to update policies and practices to meet the obligations of current EU and Maltese commitments towards the implementation of gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming has been defined as ‘the (re)organization, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies, at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making’¹.

Mainstreaming strategy is not aimed at changing men and women, but rather accepts their different situations, priorities and needs as being of the same importance for both genders. This is the starting point in (re)designing organizations and institutions to be gender equal.

This project will enhance this gender mainstreaming process through group training sessions with senior officials responsible for the implementation of gender mainstreaming, while also sensitizing the general public about the subject matter and empowering them to be more vigilant against direct and indirect discrimination.

Furthermore, this project intends to inform private sector employers through the dissemination of targeted materials to narrow the inequality gap between men and women in employment. The target groups of this project are directors, policy makers, human resource managers, equality committees as well as the general public.

¹Council of Europe, Expert Group on Mainstreaming: October 1998 as at http://eucenter.wisc.edu/Conferences/Gender/
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