Posts Tagged ‘Women’

Cities can boost female entrepreneurship

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

Cities and Municipalities have a role to play when it comes to achieving weed-image-2gender equality, especially in the economic area. With well thought out policies, they can encourage more women to set up businesses, and provide support for female entrepreneurs.

Today the International Women’s Day will be celebrated – statistics and numbers will once again be used to show that European women still keep on encountering more obstacles than men in the job market and as entrepreneurs.

The European Commission’s strategy  for equality between women and men (2010-2015) recommends “using the potential and the reservoir of women’s talents more intensively and more effectively in order to increase economic and commercial benefits”.

The Europe 2020 Strategy sets a goal of 75% employment rate among men and women between the age of 20 and 64!

weed-2 In the context of today’s economic crisis, cities can play a key role in helping achieve these goals and be a key factor of progress.

In the framework of the URBACT project WEED, nine European cities – from Sweden, Czech Republic, Spain, Slovenia, Italy, France and the UK – worked on identifying and developing integrated local actions to improve chances for women in employment, entrepreneurship and the knowledge economy.

Here are their recommendations:

1.    Municipalities have a role to play in supporting women and their entrepreneurial projects:

  • By setting up measures in schools for early intervention in fighting deep-seated attitudes concerning career choices for girls and boys and the roles of women and men;
  • By making micro-financing accessible to women;
  • By developing more integrated and more innovative support for business creation and growth.

2.    At a local level, it is possible to act on the quality of women’s employment:

  • If employers create working conditions that are more favourable to family life;
  • If flexible training activities open up new careers that are less gender-determined;
  • If social enterprises are encouraged to create new areas of growth.

3.    Gender inequality in the knowledge economy can be overcome:

  • Through interesting and better-targeted training, including local work based on knowledge centres;
  • By making the environment more favourable to women and the family;
  • By effective regional partnerships between municipalities and universities.

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Why Gender Matters for Cities?

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

weedThe 8th of March is the international women’s day. This should certainly not be the only moment to think about it, but it is the occasion to recall the unbalanced situation between women and men in most areas of life. The city embodies these unbalances; which means policies and actions at the local level can also stimulate and lever for change.

Gender perspectives on urban planning have been developing in the last decades, and this gender reading of space and space organisation has impacts in all areas of integrated urban development. For instance UN Millennium goals underline the necessity for all governments to take into account gender considerations development and infrastructure projects (UN 2007).

Indeed, if ‘developing a gender perspective’ can appear a very theoretical objective, thinking about the city differently only requires raising very simple questions. Interrogations such as ‘how to make a city safe for women?  Useable for people with young children and pushchairs? How to adapt to complex travel patterns of women?’ have an impact on the way one think the organisation of public space and public transportation. This is also the case in terms of local governance (women have different roles as men in society and diverse agendas so they are not likely to be involved in the same way in local governance systems), or economic development.

On the web, quite a lot of information is available on the issue. For instance, the Women design service, an organisation based in London, has developed a whole database on gender and the build environment reminding the main characteristics of women in the city and how to adapt and think with their life patterns.

But more concretely, URBACT projects also work on the best ways to build a gender balanced and inclusive city, either directly as it is the case of WEED ‘Women, Enterprise and Employment in Local development’, or when considering all aspects of active inclusion and human capital and entrepreneurship like in the ESIMEC project (Economic Strategies and Innovation in Medium Sized Cities).

These projects have developed and considered successful case studies in the area of economic integration of women. You’ll find a few examples below extracted from Gill’ Scott analysis.  These are just a reminder on how much thinking about gender equality and in a gender perspective can bring to the whole society!

Using micro finance to support cities entrepreneurship: Celje, Slovenia

The WEED partners have shown that making micro finance more gender-sensitive can be done effectively and with long-term positive effect on business sustainability. In Celje, Slovenia, it has been found that investing in a strong integrated system of support for women entrepreneurs, including micro finance and longer term mentoring, has a positive impact for start up and business growth.

Social Enterprise, a successful way to boost jobs and improve services: the PAN project in Italy

The implementation of the PAN project shows the potential of integration of women in the labour market through the development of social enterprise. PAN is a consortium of social enterprises which offers start-up assistance to organisations interested in establishing new types of services for children in the form of social enterprises. Between 2004 – 2008, PAN successfully built 140 new infant schools with 4,311 available places and 943 new jobs, largely for women.

Supporting Women entrepreneurship

Despite the fact that a majority of female Students in Santiago de Compostela have received their education in the area of Technological and Experimental Science, the skills of female graduate are seldom transferred into entrepreneurial initiative. The Woman Emprende Programme, based in the University, receives municipal support to offer new solutions to these problems. Considering women face barriers such as a poor access to technology and support, and difficulties to balance work and family, the programme supports entrepreneurial ventures that take into consideration the specific characteristics of women. It offers a variety of support like knowledge updating, access to University technology, development of support structure for working mothers.

Ségolène Pruvot

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Women – not just a ‘good weather policy’

Monday, October 18th, 2010

weedThe 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion included as a principle the need to address gender inequalities in the risks of poverty and policy responses.  This is an important principle when the gender pay gap together with inequalities in employment opportunities and slow changing roles in the family in parts of Europe results in specific and high risks of poverty for significant numbers of women. URBACT Project WEED‘s review of interventions to address the issue in cities across Europe highlighted how a failure to address women’s poor position in the labour market not only leaves women at significantly greater risk of poverty than men, it is also a lost opportunity for stimulating economic growth. As we approach the end of 2010 there is a danger that the economic crisis will leave women facing a ‘triple jeopardy’ of slashed benefits, jobs cuts, and a reduction in the core public services they rely on for themselves and those they care for: all the more reason to make sure the Strategy for Equality between Women and Men 2010-2015 announced by the European Commission in September is used to strengthen national and local resolve. It is important that gender equality does not become a mere ‘good weather’ policy.

Professor Gill Scott
Lead Expert WEED project

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Catherine Ashton, first High Representative for Foreign Affairs – a step forward for women in politics?

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

ashton2Catherine Ashton, previously EU Commissioner for Trade joined an illustrious group of women who have been Foreign Ministers in the world when she became EU’s new foreign affairs chief in November. She will rank only behind Hilary Clinton and Angela Merkel as one of the most powerful women in politics, representing half a billion EU citizens. As Trade Commissioner over the previous year she has developed a good reputation in global arenas and is seen by many as having a straightforward, practical and businesslike approach that will prove a strong basis for the tasks of the post. The appointment holds an additional significance. It offers a message for other women involved in politics throughout the EU. The current European Parliament comprises 31% women and 69% men. Margot Wallstrom, Vice President of the EU, argued early in 2009 that, “ 2009 offers some excellent opportunities for EU leaders and citizens to show that they are seriously interested in gender equality “. Catherine Ashton’s appointment may not show a major transformation in the position of women within European politics but for many women acting in local, national and international arenas it provides a valuable and positive role model for the future.

Suzi Kvas
WEED (Women, Entreprise and Employment in Local Development) project Lead Partner

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