The Promotion of Gender Equality within Local Development ...

The promotion of gender equality within local development processes: Italythe idea that work-family reconciliation is importantnot exclusively for women but, generically,for the quality of life of male and female workersand the well-being of the community.At national level a decisive step is taken with thelaunching of the Law 53 of March 8, 2000“provisions for supporting maternity and paternityand for harmonizing work, care and family times,”that emphasizes the need to share the father andmother’s choice to suspend work, and underlinesan approach aimed at improving quality of life foremployed men and women.The same law provides for the concession ofcontributions to companies that carry out positiveaction programmes to develop forms of flexibilityin organizing their activities to foster schedulingflexibility that reconciles working and living times.The law also governs the tasks of local administrationson city schedules, instituting a NationalFund to finance and assigning specific roles toRegions and Municipalities for defining a“Territorial Scheduling Plan.” The importance ofsuch provisions lies in the idea that schedulingpolicies for reconciliation within the broadest citytimesrelated policies can act to improve localservices. The entire group of regulations governingsupport measures for maternity and paternity wasreordered and reorganized according to theLegislative Decree of March 26, 2001, number 151“Consolidation act on the legislative provisionson the protection and support of maternity andpaternity.“Besides these measures, the above mentionedreform of the Public Administration gains groundintroducing, among others, the concept of “genderpolicies” with the Legislative Decree of 30 March,2001, number 165 (general regulations onOrganization of work for employees in publicadministration). The deal provides that “publicadministration guarantees equality and equalopportunities between men and women for accessto work and treatment on the job, handles thetraining and upgrading of personnel, ensuring theadjustment of training programmes, to contributeto the development of the gender culture in PublicAdministration 21 .”The last years were distinguished by twoimportant constitutional reforms containingimportant implications for equal opportunities,and in particular in regard to female representationin public life. On March 8, 2002 an amendment ismade to the Article 51 of the Constitution,providing for the adoption of suitable provisionsaimed at implementing equal opportunitiesbetween men and women in institutional positions.The amendment provides for a constitutionalcoverage for all those provisions aimedat the integration of quota mechanisms for fosteringaccess of women to public and electiveoffices, and completes the state legislative coursethat already began for the system of ordinary andspecial statute Regions 22 .The Second amendment, reforming the Italianregionalism (see paragraph 3.1) amended Article117 of the Constitution, stating at paragraph 7 that“the regional laws remove all barrier hindering fullequality between men and women in social,cultural and economic life, and promote equalityof access between men and women to electiveoffices.” The principle of equal access for men andwomen to elective offices becomes a bindingfactor for regional legislation. This provisionpushed regional legislators to introduce into the21 Last May, the Minister for Rights and Equal Opportunities and the Minister for Reform and Innovation in Public Administration, issued a directive to promote the EqualOpportunities principle in Public Administration, with the objective of fully bringing into force provisions governing equality in the public sector, and to bridge the gap betweenthe considerable number of women in the public sector and their limited professional progress.22 The Constitutional Law 2/2001 on the direct election of the Presidents of the Regions with a special statute and the Autonomous Provinces have introduced provisionsaimed at promoting equality between the sexes in the access to the electoral consultations to rebalance the representation among the sexes.22