• Yesterday (Friday) Bogota provided the perfect ending to the World Summit of local governments with a forum on gender equality which gathered female leaders and local elected Mayoresses such as Anne Hidalgo, Mayoress of Paris and Manuela Carmena, Mayoress of Madrid.

• Ibon Uribe participated in the Forum as EUDEL representative to convey the voice of municipalities and describe the progress made in terms of Equality as a result of the joint cooperation of Basque institutions.

• Galdakao Mayor advocated to foster the “feminization” of politics through strong leadership from local governments. Uribe defended the importance of gender quotas for balanced representation, as well as the reinforcement of municipal criteria and tools to provide a new boost to local equality policies.

• Balanced representation of women and men in politics is a priority for local cities and governments worldwide; (UCLG) states women make up less than 20% of councillors and only 5% in councils worldwide.

Bilbao, 15^th October 2016. Yesterday, Friday 14^th October, EUDEL conveyed the voice of Basque municipalities in favour of gender equality. For the first time EUDEL has taken part in the United Local Cities and Governments (ULCG) World Summit programme, in its 5^th International Congress held in Bogotá.

Ibon Uribe, Galdakao Mayor and current Equality Chairman of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), participated as invited speaker in the Equality Forum which provided the perfect ending to the World Summit hosted in the capital of Colombia. During the session which took place from 11 am to 12.30 pm, fostering the feminization of politics and gender equality as priorities for local governments worldwide were discussed among other issues.

Bogotá Equality Forum gathered local elected female representatives as well as Mayoresses from cities around the world. This long list included countries such as: Canada, Cameroon, Mauritania, the Philippines, Panama or Colombia, and was led by the Mayoress of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who is the current chairwoman of UCLG Standing Committee on Gender Equality.  In addition, from Spain the Mayoress of Madrid, Manuela Carmena will also be taking part in the event.

Ibon Uribe invited local representatives from towns and cities worldwide to exercise a strong leadership to promote women and men’s equality in local life. “Municipalities and regions must contribute to this change, as we are closer to citizens and international bodies such as the ULCG which play a critical role in referring this need to national associations, local governments and institutions of Global estates and facilitate criteria and tools”, stated Uribe yesterday.

To do so, the EUDEL representative proposed three key instruments: political commitment, quotas and empowerment.

In Europe, the ‘Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life’ (2006, in force for the last 10 years) is the main regulatory reference to foster gender equality in municipalities. “The Charter is committed to defend and support women’s and men’s right to vote, to be candidates, to be elected”, explained Ibon Uribe, “and expressly encourages women to join electoral lists as candidates, and political parties and groups to implement and apply the balanced representation principle”.

The EUDEL representative defended “action to accelerate change and legislation to establish quotas; let’s facilitate matters for those wishing to be elected to represent society as it is, correcting an imbalance that unless acted upon will take decades to solve naturally.”