KARAT Coalition

National Dialogues about gender and development in Bulgaria and Romania

Two national dialogues were held in Sofia, Bulgaria (the 7th of February) and in Bucharest, Romania (the 9th of February) within the project: “CONNECT! East/South/West women for development”. The first one was organized by Gender, Education, Research and Technologies Foundation (GERT), the second one – by 'AUR' - The National Organization of Human Resources Specialists. These events contributed to achieving the main objective of the project: building bridges between the women’s movement, non-governmental development organizations and decision makers. The dialogues were organized under the title: “Practicing the Promises: Gender equality and Women’s rights in EU New Member States development cooperation”. The aim of the events was to present the international obligations made by the new donor countries (Bulgaria and Romania are among them) regarding the development cooperation and to highlight the importance of including gender equality as a cross-cutting issue in their agenda and also in practice.

Each dialogue was an opportunity to give the floor to various actors in the process, especially partners from global South: Chipo Kanjo from the Coalition of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (Malawi) and Atupele Chirwa from Malawi National Women's Lobby Group cooperating with One World Action’ project’s lead organization. The representatives of the Romanian Senate, Parliament and Ministries as well as Bulgarian Ministries and Norwegian and Dutch ambassadors in Bulgaria took active part in the dialogues and contributed to the discussion with the decision makers’ point of view.

2010-03-03

European Development Days 2010

The 5th edition of the European Development Days (EDD) took place in Brussels on 6 and 7 December. Organized by the European Commission and the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, EDD is the leading European forum where the questions and issues about international development cooperation are debated. KARAT Coalition, together with One World Action, Arci, UN CDF, Solidar and UN Women, took part in the panels focused on gender equality in development cooperation. Thanks to our participation in EDD we have a possibility to underline the importance of gender issues during this high-level European meeting, among various actors such as representatives of governments, CSOs, Global South partners, European and international officials. During the EDD KARAT Coalition was represented by Secretariat staff and members from EU New Members States (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia).
The next edition of the EDD will take place in Poland, 14-18 December 2011.
More information about EDD 2010 on: http://www.eudevdays.eu

2010-12-20

KARAT and OWA at CIVICUS FORUM

The debate on the challenges of organizing for social inclusion and gender equity was organised by One World Action and KARAT at the CIVICUS 9th World Assembly (20-23 August 2010 in Montreal, Canada), attended by several hundreds participants from the spectrum of civil society organizations.
Our workshop focused on engagement of marginalized/poor group of women in development of new strategies aiming at building equitable, gender sensitive, democratic and accountable governance. The experience of women’s groups from Africa, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe presented in the context of various processes, such as development effectiveness, Beijing or European Union enlargement, was a starting point of the discussion aiming to explore a number of themes including:
How can marginalized/poor groups raise their capacity to engage with and transform political processes? What lessons can be learned from marginalized/poor women’s political participation at various levels that can contribute to strengthening development processes? What can we learn from new strategies such as the development effectiveness process?

The workshop attended by more than 20 participants contributed to the Southern, Eastern, Western learning and sharing and to pointing out the importance of the role that women play in the various processes.

2010-09-01

Action Brief: Development cooperation and gender equality in the New Member States of the European Union.

The Action Brief: Development cooperation and gender equality in EU New Member States was published as a part of the KARAT’s project: Connect! South/ East/ West Women for Development. The authors of the briefing emphasized that the EU NMS, like Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are facing many challenges regarding development cooperation, but the most important issue is that the development policies of NMS are gender blind. The analysis of the situation and recommendations presented in the briefing can be useful not only for the members from NMS – donor countries, but also for the members from Eastern developing countries – recipients of Official Development Assistance. We encourage you to read the Action Brief:

in English

in Polish

in Bulgarian

Connect! leaflet

One World Action, KARAT Coalition and project partners would like to present you the Connect! leaflet discrubing our goals and activities in Connect! East South West women for development project.

The leaflet is available:

in English

in Polish

in Czech

in Bulgarian

in Romanian

in Slovak

COMING EVENT: Connect ! Regional Dialogue on gender sensitive and responsive EU Development cooperation in New Member States , Warsaw, 12-13 May 2010

KARAT Coalition and One World Action (OWA) are pleased to invite you to a Regional Dialogue on women’s rights in development cooperation to be held on 12 and 13 May in Warsaw. The aim of the Dialogue is to increase the capacity of women’s organisations in New Member States (NMS) through learning, exchange of experiences, and networking to generate stronger collaboration between women from East, South and West on EU gender equality, development policy and practice.

Objectives of the upcoming Dialogue are threefold:

1. Learning: We will aim to share our respective knowledge, experience and learn about the realities and challenges women in developing countries are facing. We will focus on what is at stake as far as NMS and EU development cooperation systems are concerned and the mobilisation opportunities and entry points for women’s rights advocates

2. Building Bridges: We will aim to connect! between Women’s Organizations and NGDOs within the EU NMS and OMS, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries of Eastern Europe for future stronger collaboration and networking. We will also goal to challenge some stereotypes that came up for East / South and West / East perception.

3. Strengthening advocacy actions: We will aim to strategize about the best way to take advantage of the policy spaces under the EU and national development cooperation systems to engage proactively in bringing women’s rights into the agenda

Expected results of the Regional Dialogue include:

1. Fostered links between the Women’s Organizations and NGDOs in EU NMS, OMS, and Women’s Rights organizations in developing countries

2. Larger number of the Women’s Organizations in NMS involved and advocating effectively for
gender focused development co-operation.

3. NMS development cooperation systems challenged from a gender and women’s rights perspective

Regional Dialogue will gather 25-30 participants from: Women’s organizations and NGDOs from UE NMS: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, Women’s rights and gender equality organizations from Sub Saharan Africa, CEE and CIS and gender and development NGOs and networks from the OMS.

It will be supported by a public event that will take place in the evening of day two, May 13th. The objective is to take advantage of the presence of the women from SSA and CEE&CIS in order to raise general public awareness and challenge stereotypical perception of women from the South and East.

Full Regional Dialogue’s concept note can be downloaded here

For more information and details on possibilities to participate please contact Marta at: marta.gontarska@karat.org.pl

2010-03-29

New coordinator of the Connect! project

Kasia Staszewska, current coordinator of the Connect! Project has decided to pursue her individual engagement in the development and women’s movement that better corresponds to her character and personal self-realization. Consequently, she quits the post of Networking Officer and Coordinator of the Connect! project by 28th of February 2010.
Kasia will stay with KARAT for next three months as a Connect! close collaborator and the consultant
The position of project coordinator has been taken over by Marta Gontarska, KARAT PR Officer and former coordinator of the Make IT fair project.

You can contact Marta on: marta.gontarska@karat.org.pl

2010-03-01

Resource material on development cooperation and women’s rights

Mini-guidebook on development cooperation from the women’s rights perspective is the New resource material Publisher (in Polish) by the KARAT Coalition within the joint Framework of the Social Watch and Connect! Project.

Publication is divided to 3 sections:

1. Why gender perspective is essential in development cooperation?

2. How does the development practise looks like?

3. Women’s as agents for change.

Resource guide, so far only in Polish is available HERE

We plan to translate it to English any time soon.

KARAT Secretariat wish to thank One World Action for sharing their photos to be used in publication.

2009-12-07

Connect! and Social Watch training in Poland

KARAT Project teams of Social Watch and Connect! South, East, West Women for Development ! came together on November 24th and organized a 1 day-training for Polish women’s rights, and development NGOs entitled: Women’s rights in development cooperation. Why? Where? How? Gender and development is quite a new topic for Poland, as it is for the other NMS.

With this initiative KARAT aimed to fill the gap and link women’s rights perspective into the development context.
The training caught a very big interest in the Polish NGO community. Participants had a chance to learn about urgent gender challenges in developing countries, international regulations, and specific actions women’s groups in the South take to foster their own development. The training concluded with the strategizing session how the topic can be taken on board and followed-up in the organizations’ daily work.
KARAT’s project staff was supported by One World Action that brought their experience to the training’s sessions.
Event built up the basis for the KARAT’s activities with the framework of the Connect! project planned for 2010-2011.

2009-11-25

Connect! lobbying in the EP

On 17 November 2009 KARAT together with One World Action (UK) took part in the mass lobby of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The aim of lobby was to highlight our concerns regarding the mainstreaming of women’s rights into development cooperation and practices of UE NMS.

We have managed to meet with the Polish MEPs from: Committee on Budgets (Sidonia Elżbieta Jędrzejewska), Committee on Development (Filip Kaczmarek), Committee on Regional Development (Danuta Maria Hubner) and Committee on Foreign Affairs (Krzysztof Lisek). Anna Zoborska, Slovakian, from Committee on Development and Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality unfortunately refused the meeting.

During this short time we had with each of the MEPs we have manager to introduce the objectives of the project and raised the issue of women’s rights in development cooperation of NMS. All the MEPs agreed, that although the subject is new and difficult, it needs further strategizing to be properly addressed in the NMS development cooperation systems that are currently being shaped.

The mass lobby, was organised by the pan-European confederation of development NGOs CONCORD, consisting of NGOs and civil society representatives from all over the EU meeting with a large number of MEPs from as many EU countries and political groups as possible to highlight the most important concerns in the EU development cooperation from the civil society perspective. It also marked the start of the close dialogue that European civil society will have with the MEPs over the coming five year parliamentary period.

2009-11-18

First meeting of the project’s partners

The first meeting of the partners involved in the project Building Support in New Member States (NMS) for Gender-sensitive and responsive European Development Co-operation took place in Warsaw on 16-17 July 2009. The Project is one of the pioneering initiatives in the Region aiming to contribute NMS Women’s voices to development cooperation debates.

During the meeting partners discussed the aims and agreed on the action plan for the project. The first publications on the NMS development cooperation system from the gender perspective will be released in the first quarter of 2010. Regional dialogue for the NMS women’s organizations and Sub-Saharan African representatives is planned for May 2010. There is also a new „friendly‟ name for the project – Connect ! East South West women for development.

The primary objectives of the project is to build the capacities of women’s rights NGOs to advocate for the full implementation of the EU gender equality policy in the governments’ development assistance and initiation of the South- East -North cooperation on women’s rights in development.

2009-07-20