The Program on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (EOWM) in the European Union accession process started out as a joint initiative of the Network Women's Program (NWP) and the Open Society Foundation Romania. Its aim was to monitor the progress, in relation to the field of equal opportunities for women and men, of the (then) candidate countries as they prepared themselves for integration into the European Union.
An assessment of the status of equal opportunities, de jure and de facto, was carried out in seven of the candidate countries (five of which became member states on May 1, 2004): Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. The EU Directives on equal opportunities provided the framework for monitoring and analyzing corresponding legislation, institutions and practices. The research was carried out by national expert teams of various backgrounds: lawyers, sociologists, scholars, and women's rights advocates from local NGOs, international agencies, and trade unions. The final report, including an overview and executive summary for each country, was published in November 2002. Each country report and executive summary was translated into the national language and was used as an advocacy/research tool during 2002 and 2003, both nationally and at the EU level.
The EOWM program is now coming to a new stage, when, based on a revised methodology, national experts will start to update the EOWM reports. This methodological seminar brings together the national experts from each country to familiarize them with the updated methodology; also, the concurrent EONET/EOWM Coordinators' Meeting will be used to discuss and finalize next steps and activities for the program's next stage.
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