Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

The ODIHR's activities in the field of gender equality are based on a three-step strategy of awareness-raising, local capacity-building and national expertise development. Activities usually include training workshops, joint government and civil society projects, and networking and co-operation initiatives for civil society and government structures.

Civil society and government co-operation at national and local levels
The ODIHR organizes workshops and roundtables for civil society and government structures, and creates networks and mechanisms for their co-operation. It also supports the development of national action plans on equal opportunities for women and men.

Capacity-building for civil society and government structures
By training local project teams and establishing self-sustainable programmes that can be managed locally, the ODIHR helps to build local capacity and ensure the long-term impact of its work. Initiatives include mainstreaming gender aspects into health and education reforms, and training university professors and high school teachers on teaching courses in equal opportunities for women and men.

Women's leadership and participation
For a number of years the ODIHR has been involved in leadership training and network-building for women in rural areas of the Caucasus and Central Asia. One of the fruits of this activity has been the establishment of a regional gender expert panel composed of previous participants in the projects. Other initiatives include NGO coalition-building to increase women's political participation.

Preventing and combating domestic violence
The ODIHR runs training programmes for law enforcement and for the development of co-operation between NGOs and law-enforcement bodies on the issue of domestic violence.
Projects are ongoing in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan with outreach to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and are carried out by the Gender Unit of the ODIHR's Democratization Department.

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