Members of women’s councilor networks from seven local governments, Čačak, Kraljevo, Gornji Milanovac, Brus, Trstenik, Vrnjačka Banja, Raška and Varvarin participated in the two-day workshop entitled “Empowerment of councilors in Local Assemblies“, was organized in Vrnjačka Banja at the end of October.
Nataša Mihajllović MP and coordinator of the Women’s Parliamentary Network of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia in her opening remarks emphasized the importance of establishing women’s councilor networks throughout Serbia for the overall promotion of gender equality at the local level in all local public policies. She referred to the importance of further interconnectedness among women’s councilor networks with the Women’s Parliamentary Network concerning coordination, exchange experiences, transfer of knowledge, information distribution and overall strengthening the presence of women in public and political life at all three level of government in the Republic of Serbia.
The two-day work was divided into several workshops and panels. The introductory panel “Women’s Participation in Politics: Theory and Practice”, moderated by Nataša Mihajlovic, was a discussion of the experiences, challenges and requirements that define political engagement. On the second day, beside Women’s Parliamentary Network coordinator and UNDP consultants, opening panel was attended by Gordana Stevanović, Deputy Protector of Citizens for Children’s Rights and Gender Equality.
Several trainings were organized During the workshop, mostly in the field of communication and public relations. Two intensive trainings were devoted to the public appearance in the media, aimed to develop the key skills and knowledge for a successful public appearance of the local councilors. Great attention was paid to the training that dealt with conflict management, as well as the training about the NLP communication model. A special module was the lecture and briefing about the importance of adoption and consistent implementation of the communication strategy in local self-government, altogether with the importance of strategic relations with the media of women’s councilor networks.
A special part of the two-day event was devoted to the presentation of the Parliaments and the Sustainable Development Goals A self-assessment toolkit, developed in cooperation of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and it was agreed to be filled it up by the participating councilors in order to review the current results of gender sensitivity of their local self-governments.
Within these two days participants, 27 of them in total, had the opportunity to debate in open discussion and to exchange opinions regarding achieved results, their different experiences within the women’s council networks, different models, approaches and working methodologies, as well as all the challenges and unresolved issues that are on the agenda of each women’s council networks in the coming period.
The workshop, held on October on 25th and 26th, was organized within the project “Strengthening the Oversight Function and Transparency of the Parliament”, which is implemented by the UNDP and supported by the Swiss Government.