Skopje, 10 February 2023 (MIA) – Not much progress has been made in rural communities to promote gender equality, according to monitoring reports from Kichevo, Plasnica, Prilep, Krivogashtani, Gostivar and Vrapchishte released by the Rural Coalition on Friday.

The reports tracked gender equality efforts in the six municipalities after a project on improving gender equality was implemented there between July 2022 and January 2023.

“The monitoring reports show that all municipalities have appointed equal opportunity coordinators, but these are people already employed in the municipalities in other posts, which makes their commitment and work on gender equality impossible.

“In most municipalities, the equal opportunity committees had no meetings nor did they carry out specific activities related to gender equality,” the Rural Coalition said in a press release.

Plasnica and Krivogashtani, the release adds, had reduced their already modest budgets allocated for gender equality program activities.

“The municipality of Kichevo had no budget nor a program for gender equality activities in 2022. However, in 2023, the municipality allocated Mden 300,000 for this purpose and it has also drafted a program for the first time. The municipality of Prilep also had no program for gender equality nor a budget for specific activities in 2022,” the release says.

Some of the municipalities, including Kichevo and Prilep, had not drafted annual reports on equal opportunities in the municipality even though they were legally required to do so.

“Some of the main challenges identified during the monitoring process include the lack of budget, the frequent reshuffling of committee members, insufficient knowledge of topics related to gender equality, the non-inclusion of women in the local decision-making processes, and nonexistent cooperation with civil society organizations,” the Rural Coalition said.

According to them, improvements should be made through a mandatory drafting and implementation of a gender equality program; a mandatory, gradually increasing annual budget; an internal monitoring system with gender-disaggregated data and statistics at the quarterly level; cooperation with civil society organizations; ensuring equal involvement of men and women in decision-making processes; and adapting local policies to EU directives and action plans.

The Rural Coalition's “Improved Gender Equality in the Local Community through European Knowledge'' was implemented with the support of Reactor – Research in Action and their partners as part of the “Furthering Gender Equality through the EU Accession Process” project. ad/mr