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Laws & Policies: Enhancing Women’s Voice, Agency and Decision-making Power

Work package 2

Work package 2 will assess the effectiveness of law and policies regarding the representation of women in key areas of decision-making by using a country-level systematic review of laws, rules, and policies. More generally, this work package focuses on the institutional dimension of ensuring a transformative equality approach and overcoming the gendered nature of the law- and policymaking processes. Utilising the Gender Equality Continuum Tool (GECT), the national gender equality approaches to law- and policymaking processes will be analysed in the six represented countries within this project: Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. 
The goal is to identify key legislation and policies regarding the representation of women in decision-making positions and gender-based violence within the consortium countries. Furthermore, this work package offers a comparative analysis of these legal and policy frameworks and whether these align with the EU and international norms. Lastly, it analyses the gendered nature and gender-blindness of law and policymaking processes in these fields and identifies both organisational constraints and incentives to give women a voice and agency as, well as possible key indicators of gender transformative approaches and good practices. There are six deliverables within work package 2:
D2.1 – Working Paper on effective transformative equality processes towards leadership positions
This working paper provides an in-depth analysis of gender inequalities in leadership roles across the public and private sector in the six represented countries within this project. The paper identifies best practices and proposes recommendations for facilitating transformative equality approaches in decision-making areas (e.g. the government, parliaments, crisis-response teams, and boards of large companies). 
D2.2 – Country-level reports and infographic on gendered nature of law- and policymaking approach 
These country reports create an overview on the gendered law- and policymaking across the six countries represented within this project. They contain information about the measures taken to counteract gendered lawmaking and the societal and political context in which they emerged. The reports consist of a general section on gendered law- and policymaking, and more specific sections zooming in on laws and policies addressing Violence Against Women (VAW) and laws and policies promoting the number of women in leadership positions. Ultimately, this deliverable will be a compilation of case studies of the different countries, concerning the gendered nature of law- and policymaking processes, including laws and policies regarding women in leadership positions and gender-based violence.
D2.3 – Working Paper: Root causes of gendered law- and policymaking processes and their effective tackling 
This working paper provides a comparative analysis of the country reports made in D2.2. It will compare and analyse the national laws and policies addressing the gendered nature of law- and policymaking processes, both in general and with regard to VAW and women in leadership positions. Generally, this deliverable will compare the legislation of the EU and the six countries of this project to identify the root causes of gendered law- and policymaking and how to tackle them effectively. 
D2.4 – Development of a policy evaluation checklist to identify and tackle gendered law- and policymaking processes 
This deliverable will contain a checklist for law- and policymakers which forms the basis for comparatively identifying and tackling gendered law- and policymaking processes. Building upon D.2.1, D.2.2 and D.2.3, the ‘best performing cases’ in increasing gender-balanced outcomes will be identified and analysed by also paying attention to the cultural, institutional/corporate and crisis context. The checklist will be geared towards the detection of gendered law- and policymaking and the identification of key barriers therein to women’s voice, agency, and decision-making power.
D2.5 – Practitioners’ toolkit for building gender-sensitive law- and policymaking
To ensure the findings of this project induce societal change, the results have to be accessible for practitioners in the field. Hereby, this toolkit will provide a translation of the findings regarding the implementation of gender-transformative law- and policymaking processes, so they can be applied in practice. 
D2.6 – Online training module for policymakers 
In order to make the results of this project more accessible to the wider public, this deliverable provides an online training module which integrates the findings of the various deliverables in this work package, in connection with the TEA. The module will be presented to policymakers and teach them how to apply the findings from this work package in practice.