Minister of Local Self-Government Suhejl Fazliu spoke at the forum "Gender Responsible Policies and Budgets: Towards Transparent, Inclusive and Reporting Management in the Republic North Macedonia" organized by UN Women, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Swedish Agency for International Cooperation and Development

At the event, a new gender responsive budgeting project was promoted, which supports the country's progress in implementing national and international commitments for gender equality and empowering women that are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and the EU accession process.

-The Ministry of Local Self-Government fully supports the commitment for gender responsive budgeting at the local level. With transparent, inclusive and responsible municipal governance, local authorities should provide an ambience for greater involvement of citizens, as well as an appropriate representation of women in decision-making processes, and we will support them in that direction. Gender responsive budgeting is an important segment in the process of democratization of society, which will strengthen with the increasing inclusion of women in politics and in society, as well as raising public awareness and increasing gender sensitivity in both women and men, said the minister local self-government Suhejl Fazliu.

The main goal of the project is to improve the lives of women, including the most vulnerable groups through the systemic and sustainable integration of the gender perspective in all stages of policy creation and budgetary processes.

At the local level, project interventions focus on policies and budgets to improve the lives of women and men of the most vulnerable groups through the use of proven practices identified in previous initiatives for gender responsive budgeting. The project puts people in the first place by finding solutions based on the needs identified by the users themselves as change factors.