Gender Project for Bulgaria

A National Dialogue was held in Sofia on February 7^th, 2011 about gender and development  within the project: “CONNECT! East/South/West Women for development”. It was organized by Gender, Education, Research and Technologies Foundation (GERT).

As a co-organizer, Gender Project for Bulgaria Foundation representative presented the topic “Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in the Development Cooperation - the Global Aspect”.

The event contributed to achieving the main objective of the project: building bridges between the women’s movement, non-governmental development organizations and decision makers.

The dialogue was organized under the title: “Practicing the Promises: Gender equality and Women’s rights in EU New Member States development cooperation”. The aim of the event was to present the international obligations made by the new donor country Bulgaria regarding the development cooperation and to highlight the importance of including gender equality as  a cross-cutting issue in their agenda and also in practice.

The dialogue was an opportunity to give the floor to various actors in the process, especially partners from global South: Chipo Kanjo from the Coalition of Women Living with HIV/AIDS  (Malawi) and Atupele Chirwa from Malawi National Women's  Lobby Group cooperating with One World Action’ project’s lead  organization. The representatives Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign  Affairs and Norwegian and Dutch ambassadors in Bulgaria took active part in the dialogue and contributed to the discussion with the decision makers’ point of view.