A. Popsui: “Our City of Irpin is now member of The European Charter for Equality”
On July 3, Irpin (Ukraine) became the signatory of the EU Initiative “The European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in the Life of Local Life”. Local councilors of the Irpin City Council voted positively and with enthusiasm. Irpin is one of the first Ukrainian cities that became participants of this Initiative. Although the initiative has been active in the EU since 2004.
“Irpin is a European-style city, and not only for the improvement and the pace of development. Irpin is truly a gender sensitive city, where 60% managers of the government bodies are women. Among the city council members are 20% of women. It is one of the best indicators of the country. Therefore, joining the EU Initiative – the Charter of Equality – was a significant for us. Together with Iryna Yarmolenko (local councilor of the Zhytomyr City Council) and other members of the European Assembly, we will promote the methodology of “equality” into the cities of Ukraine more actively next years,” announced Anastasiia Popsui, Local Councilor and Secretary of Irpin City Council, Head of NGO “City Council Women’s European Assembly”.
In 2004, the European Commission supported an ambitious project launched by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR): to develop a portrait of a virtual city in which gender equality would have been supposedly fully realized.
After having studied the experience of nearly a hundred European cities and communities in eleven industries, CEMR has prepared a practical tool for local and regional authorities on how they can achieve equality in their communities. The CEMR also noticed systemic issues: lack of skills and lack of analytical tools that enable gender equality policies to be strengthened locally and regionally.
When the program was actually created, CEMR wanted to encourage local and regional authorities to take another step in realizing this reality by making a political commitment. That is how the idea of creating a “European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in the Local Life” was born.
The local self-government bodies involved in its signing publicly acknowledge their dedication to the idea of quality of women and men in the lives of local communities.
Today, at the time of the implementation of the decentralization reform, the ability of local self-government bodies to self-regulate social relations at the local level becomes an important factor.
