Meet Your Experts!
Discussion details
Meet Your Experts!
The new EU Gender Action Plan 2016-2020 (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/10/26-fac-conclusions-gender-development/) requires that “Robust gender evidence (is) used to inform all EU external spending, programming and policy making.” (objective 4) otherwise said gender analysis is mandatory for all new actions as of 2016.
A Gender Analysis Support Teamwas established to assist EC at headquarters and EU Delegations with meeting this requirement through: assisting with the preparation of ToR for gender analysis and assessing the quality of the output of ToR; assessment of existing gender analysis; and providing guidance for use of the gender analysis in the planning for concentration areas of cooperation with partner countries (e.g. desing of new Action Documents by the EU Delegations).
The team of experts operates under direct supervision of DEVCO B1 and it consists of four Senior experts and a Junior expert. They stand ready to support EUD staff in meeting the requirements of the GAP II and in doing the Final selection of the GAP objectives and submission to HQ of the template by September 30, 2016 and further support until March 2017.
Here a short presentation of their profiles:
Blerina Vila, team leader, has nearly two decades of experience (most of which at international level) in institutional capacity building and policy advice on development planning with a rights-based approach, with focus on gender equality and child labour. For the past 12 years she has worked closely with the European Commission as expert on gender equality mainstreaming contributing to identifying feasible solutions to the problems posed by the delivery of technical assistance in areas such as human rights and governance, education and health reform, commerce, infrastructure, nutrition, food security and social protection, reform of the judiciary system, and how gender issues and women's rights need to be integrated into them. In 2015 she assisted the EC’s and EU Member States’ Task Force that drafted the EU Gender Action Plan 2016 – 2020 (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/10/26-fac-conclusions-gender-development/), including working very closely with the DEVCO B Directorate in identifying institutional mechanisms to facilitate its implementation. Currently she is the leader of the team of experts tasked to assist the EC and EU Delegations to comply with the GAP requirement of generating and using gender analysis for purposes of planning the cooperation with partner countries. She is fluent in Albanian, English, French, Italian, has a good knowledge of Spanish and some Dutch. She is based in Belgium.
Eva Dalak is an International Consultant; Facilitator and Trainer. She has 17 years of experience working in International Development on issues related to Gender mainstreaming, Gender analysis and conflict transformation with the United Nations, the European Union and various International Non Governmental Organizations. She has experienced working in highly diverse, dynamic and complex multicultural contexts in various conflict zones in Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia where she supported communities and individuals on resolving conflicts using a variety of modalities and multiple skills and tools. She worked previously as the Gender expert for European Commission’s Instrument Contributing for Stability Gender Facility: providing ad hoc guidance on gender equality and conflict transformation. Mainstreaming women, peace and security issues, crisis management and post crisis assistance action documents and desigining and delivering training on Gender mainstreaming in IcSP operations at EU Delegations; She also worked as the Gender trainer for the DEVCO B1 previously on designing thematic Gender Mainstreaming Training Modules on Food Security and Rural Development, Climate Change and Natural Resource Management. She delivered training on Gender mainstreaming for the EU delegations in Benin, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bolivia and Brussels.
Helen O’Connell worked for almost 30 years in the UK NGO international development sector on policy influencing at national and European Union levels and programme development for gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights outcomes.Since 2009, Helen has worked as an independent consultant and adviser on women’s rights and gender equality.She has advised and written on women’s political participation, gender and aid and trade, gender equality in conflict-affected contexts and state-building.Her consultancy work includes assignments for UNDP, UN Women, UK Department for International Development, European Institute for Gender Equality, Overseas Development Institute and several European NGOs.She wrote three papers for ODI on the EU’s Gender Action Plan:a review of implementation of GAP I (2013); options for a GAP II (2014); analysis of GAP II (2015).
Thera van Osch is an economist graduated at Tilburg University (Netherlands - 1980). She is specialized in gender and economics, particularly in the area of international development. Over the years she published articles, books and (online) training courses on gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting and the economy of care. Her broad in-depth gender expertise stems from 30 years of professional experience in mainstreaming gender equality and women's empowerment in programmes of international cooperation. She worked and lived for 15 years in different countries of Latin America. Besides she accomplished over 150 missions to many countries in all continents. Since 2007 she has been in charge of several EU assignments for gender training and capacity building of EU Staff in Brussels and at EU Delegations worldwide, including six years as teamleader of EU Gender Advisory Services. She is fully familiar with EU policies and practices to promote gender equality within and beyond the EU. In 2005 she founded her company ‘OQ Consulting BV’ (www.oqconsulting.eu) in the Netherlands, in 2006 the Foundation of the Economy of Care (www.caring-economics-academy.com) and in 2013 ‘World House Wetten’ (www.world-house.eu) in Germany. Currently she is leading these organisations and works as a freelance consultant and trainer. She is also mother of two children and grandmother of a granddaughter.
Margherita Sofia Zambelli is working as a Junior expert in the Gender Analysis Support team. She holds a Bachelor in Intercultural Communication and a Master in International Cooperation – Development and Emergencies. For the past two years, she has been working for in the field of gender mainstreaming in development cooperation, mainly focusing on the organization of trainings on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in projects and programmes. Together with senior experts, she led trainings to some EU Delegations in the world and to Research Institutes. She is fluent in, English, Italian, has a good knowledge of Spanish and some German. She is based in Italy.
You can contact them directly using this address eu.gap2016@gmail.com or through DEVCO B1.
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