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Beijing+20 - Institutional Mechanism for the Advancement of Women

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To preserve and implement the rights of women and girls, the Platform for Action has formulated strategic goals aimed at helping governments to entrench a gender equality perspective in every policy area. The goal is to guarantee women equal access to and full participation in power as well as in decision-making processes. The Platform for Action describes what institutional arrangements are required for a systematic policy of gender equality and thus the nucleus of what has been incorporated into Europe’s policy of gender equality as “gender mainstreaming”.

A study conducted by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) examined the progress made by EU member states in establishing institutional mechanisms such as equal opportunity offices as well as in gender mainstreaming. All in all, progress has been made since the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted. In Germany, however, the efforts of the federal government to implement gender mainstreaming and other instruments have long since ground to a halt. As far back as 2009, the UN CEDAW has criticized the cutbacks in coordination structures and urged the government to return to its GeM strategy, because the federal government has ceased to pursue a consistent policy of gender equality, preferring, at times, contradictory or symbolic individual measures instead. Both the political will and the structures required for real implementation are lacking.

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