Project Title: EU-CIS Gender Watch

Implementing Organisation: Network of East-West Women, Poland

Total Budget: 75 080 euros

Total request from Fund: 43 880 euros

Context at the Beginning of the Project:

Gender equality in the CEE and CIS had been adversely influenced by a declining economic situation, human rights abuses due to military conflicts and/or rising fundamentalism which had marked the transition of the newly independent states from an authoritarian regime to democracy; from a planned economy to one dependent on market forces. Violence against women in this region, abuse of their reproductive rights, discrimination in the labour market and low participation of women in decision-making had become a serious issue in the recent years.

Despite a common history, there existed a great distinction between gender-based NGOs in the New Member States (EU-10) and in the rest of the CEE/CIS region. The Network of East-West Women (NEWW) had been trying to use commonalities and common experiences of both groups of countries for mutual benefit. NEWW, with members both in the NMS and CIS, served for more than a decade as an information resource and a coordinator for lobbying and advocacy campaigns.

NEWW was concerned that the EU commitments to gender equality were being diluted by the new trend to merge gender equality with non-discrimination, equal opportunities, or human rights themes. As a response to this, the EU Gender Watch was established in 2006 with the support of the Presidency Fund and was created by NEWW as a network of organisations to monitor gender and development issues from the perspective of the EU and that of developing countries in the CEE/CIS.  In the course of implementation of this project, gender equality advocates in CEE/CIS raised concerns over the gap between the European Union’s commitment to advance gender equality and its translation into practice in the region. Reports based on studies conducted in from Georgia, Tajikistan and Ukraine as a part of this project highlighted these concerns.

At the end of its one-year implementation, the project had reached a crucial stage as the Network was broadening its focus towards achieving transparency in EU development aid with specific reference to gender issues. The Network in the second phase of this project, should continue to highlight gender concerns of the CEE/CIS region and monitor EU commitments to advance gender equality and lobby for its translation into policy, action, and allocation of resources were reflected in EU development assistance to countries of the region (in the new instruments as well as in ODA).

To achieve this, workshops and “training the trainers” session shoud be carried out to multiply the knowledge of development aid utilization which would enable gender-based NGOs from the region to develop skills that would enable to familiarize themselves with current debates on EU Development Policy and the Financial Perspective 2007 – 2013, and to be able to carry out research, monitoring and later on lobbying and advocacy actions and campaigns to ensure the inclusion of a gender perspective in development policies of the EUthem

Description of the project and Expected Results:

This project included extensive networking with NGDOs within Poland and at the EU-level as well. At the national level, NEWW Poland was a member of the Polish NGDO platform, “Grupa Zagranica”, which  joined CONCORD  in 2007 and other European NGDO networks to participate in EU-wide initiatives to monitor the Official Development Assistance (ODA). NEWW-Polska saw its role in contributing to the “gender element” in this analysis. NEWW Polska also planed to cooperate with The Polish Green Network, another Platform member and  also a recipient of aid from the Presidency Fund to monitor the national development policy. The EU Gender Watch Secretariat would continue to network with WIDE, EUROSTEP and EEPA. The EU-CIS Gender Watch project would also strengthen and expand existing CEE/CIS regional networks and create new ones where lacking.  NEWW would collaborate with all existing regional networks like Gender Policy Network (former Network Women’s Program of OSI), ASTRA (a network on reproductive rights), KARAT (a lobbying network) or La Strada.


The desired results of this project were the engagement of civil society in advocacy efforts to ensure that EU commitment to advance gender equality was reflected in EU development assistance to countries of the region (new EU instruments for years 2007-2013, as well as in ODA of the donor countries).

Results after Implementation:

As it had not achieved all its objectives in the call 1 project NEWW applied for and received a second grant in call 3. The proposal was in fact a follow-up, if not continuation, of the first project. The focus of the project moved more in the direction of support for NMS and near neighbourhood countries identifying as additional subregions the Caucasus and Central Asia. Tajikistan, one of the focus countries in the first project was replaced by Armenia. As a result NEWW, through the EU-CIS Gender Watch project, published reports on Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraïne (the latter two progress reports based on the call 1 reports). These were launched on 23-24 June 2008 in Brussels with the participation of representatives of the EU institutions. While the launch turned out to be a useful advocacy initiative, it is not clear whether it will have a long term impact. Particularly the fact that the EU-CIS Gender Watch is now called ‘a Project’ which ran from 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 respectively and seems to have stopped in 2009, diminishes the chances of a prolonged impact as the reports, how valuable they are in themselves, will become dated in the next few years. NEWW should make sure that the momentum created through the two PF grants does not go to waste.

However, NEWW has used the funding also to increase its own capacity. With a regular Newsletter it keeps its members updated, while its membership in Grupa Zagranica gives it the opportunity to be involved in activities to influence EU development policy. It has also joined Eurostep, thereby giving it a platform to join forces with Eurostep’s members to promote the inclusion of gender equality in EU programming and funding, particularly for the CIS countries. A small but telling comment in the final report can be found in NEWW’s observation that the response from NGOs to certain activity proposals was much less than in the previous project period. This raises the question whether follow-up/additional proposals should not include more innovative activities to mobilise interest among its member NGOs.