The Promotion of Gender Equality within Local Development ...

The promotion of gender equality within local development processes: Italyprogramming: such guidelines made it possibleto stimulate the inclusion of gender orientationand to make the gender mainstreaming principlemore effective at all levels and in all the policyfields. Overall, the VISPO Guidelines are areference framework of contents, methodologiesand operative tools, and a support for theprogramming and evaluation tasks of theStructural Funds 2000-2006.The European Social Fund also finances thecommunity Initiative EQUAL which is an experimentallaboratory of the European Strategy forEmployment and another opportunity given byEuropean programming to innovate the system ofsocio-vocational integration of men and women.To that end, the Initiative reflects in its contentsthe same duel approach in terms of equalopportunities, with the combined definition ofspecific and transversal actions. In the first case,the Initiative provides for a dedicated Pillar, Axis4 - Equal opportunities; in the second one, itprovides for gender mainstreaming in all the otherPillars, as indicated in the same Single ItalianProgramming Document of Initiatives (DOCUP).The mission of Equal in relation to the Equalopportunities Axis as an experimental initiative,it’s not the creation of employment for women,such as the ordinary European Social Fund as wellas the various national and regional laws: it aimsto improve the quality of the existing occupation,with particular attention to the discriminationfactors creating participation and permanencegaps in the labour market. The experimentalnature of Equal has allowed the conception andfinancing of innovative project proposals on thistopic, centered on the following three macro areas:a) enhancement of the female resource in theentrepreneurial and organizational contexts; b)promotion of measures aimed at opposing formsof horizontal segregation in professionalenvironments both of women and men; c)improvement in working conditions and reconciliationwith the nonworking life. At national level,in the area of the Equal phase II, five sectorialDevelopment Partnerships (DS) and 29 geographicalpartnerships were selected, many of whichincluding the integration of gender mainstreamingin the local development processes and initiativesas a supporting element in the project initiatives.3.5. The community programming 2007-2013 and the unitary regional policyThe Italian proposal of National StrategicFramework (NSF) for the regional developmentpolicy 2007-2013 was approved by the EuropeanCommission with the decision of 13 th July 2007.TheNSFdefines10prioritiesrelativetothegrowthof human capital, to the research and theinnovation, to the recovery of the productivity, tothe improvement of the quality of life and to theattraction of resources and international openness.The territorial dimension of the regionalpolicy 2007-2013 finds its execution withinindividual priorities, with close attention on theconstruction of a territorial programming andproject planning, based on the enhancement ofspecific identities and potentials, found in theurban areas, the rural areas and the localproductive systems.The NSF declares equal opportunities (togetherwith the human factor, the quality of life, socialinclusion, the environment) as “essential componentsand activators of potential developmentand decisive innovation factors.” The respect forthe principle of equality between men and women(and for the principleofpreventionofeverydiscrimination) is integrated in theimplementation of measures in the mainstreamingapproach that also leaves space for dedicatedmeasures, with specific reference to some of thepriorities highlighted by the Framework. Amongthe components of the socio-economicpartnership, “organizations to promote equalopportunities” are expressly recalled.The real novelty of NSF lies in the prevision forunitary programming of the regional, national andcommunity policy and the subsequent temporal28