EWL Board Seminar
“Back to the future – Strategies to strengthen feminist principles and funding for
women’s rights and gender equality in Europe”
Brussels, 11 October 2013 – 14.00 – 18.00
Mundo B - Rue d'Edimbourg 26, 1050 Bruxelles
Women’s rights and gender equality in Europe are experiencing a serious backlash and are at stake. While this
trend has been happening over many years, it is accentuated and accelerated by the crisis which is used as an
excuse for cutting financial resources to women’s advocacy, groups, services and grass root activism. This is
happening in varying degrees across all of the Member States of the EU and within the EU institutions. The EWL
Board seminar in October 2012 focused on Beating the backlash: moving beyond an anti-feminist agenda at
which a number of issues were raised with regards to threats to institutional mechanisms for gender equality,
messaging feminism in a context of backlash and the impact of the crisis on women, which included the
presentation of the EWL report “The price of austerity – the impact on women’s rights and gender equality in the
EU”.
The focus of this seminar is not to revisit what was discussed last year but to move further to explore how we
can regain feminist principles and the means to be proactive and reactive in a fast changing socio-economic
environment. The EWL as a whole is faced with new realities and many of the EWL members are also facing
challenges, both from a funding perspective and changes in policy priorities and orientation in which women’s
rights and gender equalities have moved to back stage. In light of these challenges, how can we move ahead
together to secure a better future in a changing environment and what strategies have worked and can be put in
place to take ownership and bring women’s right, gender equality and feminist principles back to the future.
The seminar proposes a mixture of exploring political and funding opportunities and will be articulated around
three main strands:
1. What opportunities do the future structural funds hold for women’s right and gender equality? What can
Foundations and non-governmental funding offer to women’s organisations?
2. How are member organisations facing challenges and what strategies have they put in place to counter
these; two examples will be presented, one that experienced cuts backs to core funding and another that
depends on project/Foundation funding.
3. How do we ensure that gender equality is an every-day political priority? What strategies to ensure that
decision-makers at all levels (national, regional, local, European) take on board feminist principles?
Finally, we will explore the idea of developing an EWL-European-wide campaign “500,000 women”, as a way to
attract women who would contribute a small sum but potentially snowball in to an independent funding source
for the EWL.
“Back to the future – Strategies to strengthen feminist principles and funding for
women’s rights and gender equality in Europe”
Programme
Mundo B - Brussels, October 11th, 2013 – 14.00 – 18.00
Welcome and introduction
14:00 -14:05:
EWL President – Viviane Teitelbaum (moderator)
Funding trends and opportunities – How the future Structural Funds can serve
women’s rights and gender equality and what Foundations can offer
14:05-15:00
Maeva Roulette, Representative from DG Employment (15 mins)
Vincent Caron from European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN), Structural Funds Toolkit (15 mins)
Ilja de Coster, Senior fundraising consultant and Vice President of the Fundraiser’s Alliance
Belgium (15 mins)
Exchange/Questions
Counteracting and mitigating the backlash - How EWL members survive
15:00-15:30:
Catherine Lynch, alternate EWL Board member, Board member of the National Women’s
Council of Ireland (15 mins)
Katalin Kevehazi (Hungary) – alternate EWL Board member (15 mins)
Exchange/Questions
15:30-16 :00 :
Coffee break
16:00-17:00:
Comment rendre l’égalité femmes-hommes une affaire de tous les jours ?
(How to make gender equality every-day business?)
Caroline De Haas, expert in gender equality, founder of EGAE (d’égal à égale) consulting agency
for gender equality training and communication, France
17:00-17:35
Back to the future – proposal to launch a “500,000 Women” Campaign
Cécile Gréboval, Secretary General, initial presentation and discussion on future independent
funding campaign for the EWL – 500,000 women, 2€ a year.
Exchange/Questions/discussions
17:35-18:00
Conclusions
This conference is supported by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social
Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013). For more information see: http://ec.europa.eu/progress