Outcome report | Working Group on women’s economic empowerment in the Western Balkans

Creating new opportunities in the regional labour market is crucial for sustainable economic development in the Western Balkans, not least after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The social debacle stemming from the pandemic, as well as the long road ahead to recovery, have taken a particularly heavy toll on women and exacerbated the existing inequalities vis-à-vis their male peers in the fields of economy and employment. It is now more important than ever to close this gap.

Established as part of Friends of Europe’s Balkan Journey and carried out in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Working Group on women’s economic empowerment in the Western Balkans identified opportunities to foster women’s development in all aspects of economic life and produced five key recommendations to achieve greater women’s economic empowerment across the region:

• promote digitalisation and skills among women through technology;
• enhance women’s ownership rights;
• increase women’s access to finance;
• establish gender-responsive budgeting as the norm; and
• develop a whole-of-society mentality to women’s rights.

Underpinned by a multistakeholder, participative and local approach, the Working Group ran for two years through a series of four meetings, hosted in four cities in the Western Balkan region.

The recommendations of the Working Group on women’s economic empowerment will be shared with governments, civil society and private sector associations throughout the region, as well as with the European Commission and specific Directorates-General and Parliamentary committees. Working Group members are invited to continue to share their thoughts with Friends of Europe, as well as act as the informal mechanism to track progress of the recommendations throughout the region. The way of working established on this issue has informed how Friends of Europe is and will address other issues in the region, namely justice reform and young people.

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* For the United Nations, references to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).