The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) have a project called Program for Sustainable Gender Equality. They will participate in the Nordic Forum. Here Marie Trollvik, the head of the program, answer 5 questions about thegender equality initiative and why they will participate at the Nordic Forum in Malmö.
1. Can you tell us a little about the Program for sustainable gender equality. What is it?
– It is actually the biggest investment ever in gender mainstreaming in Sweden. Since 2008 SALAR have allocated state funds to local governments that want to give citizens equal service regardless of gender. In total, SALAR have been granted 240 million by the government for this initiative, until the end of 2013. About 70 of our members have conducted development work for gender mainstreaming in the regular work.
2. What is it that distinguishes Program for Sustainable gender equality from other ventures?
– We view gender equality as a win-win situation: it’s good for both the citizen and the municipalities. We have had a strong focus on practical impact on citizens. Gender equality will lead to equivalent service, allocation of resources and attention. But we also put focus on the relationship between gender and quality. Equivalence is a measure of quality in itself, but it is also true that gender mainstreaming would increase monitoring and quality management in local governments. More and better activities for the money, that is.
We have also been working deliberately to get into gender in participants’ control and management. A prerequisite for that, is that there are gender-specific statistics, so you can make women and men visible in planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring. That’s what gender mainstreaming is.
3. How have the reactions been to your work?
– Mostly very positive, especially on all concrete examples, whether it is about gender snow removal, better scores of boys at school, or better care for female hip replacement patients. Many want to work with gender mainstreaming.
4. Can you see any gender equality result of the Program?
– We see a lot of concrete results in the municipalities that participated in the program; school, health care, community, culture and leisure. But we also see that it takes a long time to get into the gender perspective in all aspects of the organization, at all levels of decision making. Two out of the three participants say they are already seeing tangible impact on citizens and I am confident that we will see even more impact in the coming years.
5. Why you will participate at the Nordic Forum in Malmö next year?
– Together with the participants in the program, we have developed a successful way to get equality in regular work, in the daily activities of local governments. Now we want to show concrete examples to inspire other players to see what equivalent service means in practice for students, patients, clients and citizens. Nordic Forum will be a fantastic venue.
