Joint work on improved gender equality in North Transylvania

The first stakeholder group meeting of NorthWest Regional Development Agency (ADR) of Northern Transylvania, Romania, brought together more than 20 people from the region in May 2023. The meeting was the official regional launch of the project, covering such topics as promotion of gender equality in entrepreneurial initiatives, presentation of the project itself, local and international best practices identified so far and next steps.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency (ADR) is an independent organization focusing in the regional development of Northern Transylvania. 

The meeting started with a short welcoming addressed by Mircea Mihăștean, Executive Director at SMEs Agency, who  stated the importance of the project initiative for the region and and briefly described the efforts and initiatives of the SME Agency regarding the project theme. Afterwards, Anca-Minodora Costin-Hendea, State Secretary, Ministry of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities, pointed out the situation of gender equality in Romania, as well as the challenges, awareness and status implementation of the principle.

Next, Ioana Dragoș from the North-West Regional Development Agency gave a brief presentation of the DEBUTING project, starting with its main objective which aims to improve public policy tools to support enterprises in order to include and implement gender equality measures, with the support of cluster organisations, within the framework of smart specialisation strategies, as well as by promoting and transferring good practices and expertise in the field between partner regions.

Then, Dumitru Cordos from SMEs Agency promoted The Female Entrepreneur Programme, which is run by the SMEs Agency in Romania, as a best practice in the project and a successful public measure that contributes to supporting gender equality.

Later on, following their participation in the first meeting of the consortium organised in April in Sweden, Daria Musca, Ioana Dragos, Alexandra Stoica and Dumitru Cordos presented a first inventory of good practices, public and private initiatives supporting gender equality. Finally, Ioana Dragos gave a brief description of the next steps to be taken in the future.