On December 9, 2022, a conference on "Promoting gender equality in local governance" was held within the framework of the 16-day campaign against gender-based violence, jointly organized by the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs, and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ).

The conference was attended by representatives of state institutions, gender representatives of local executive authorities and municipalities, and representatives of civil society institutes.

Delivering the opening speech, Mrs. Sadagat Gahramanova, Deputy Chair of the State Committee welcomed the participants and drew attention to the measures taken by the government to ensure gender equality. She noted that as a result of the reports of all state institutions on the implementation of the Law "On Guarantees of Gender Equality (Women and Men), the State Committee presents information on the current situation in the direction of gender equality to the Milli Majlis every year.

She noted that one of the urgent issues today is the creation of gender commissions in municipalities that have the opportunity to establish closer relations with the local population in terms of territory, and gender commissions are already operating in 30 local self-governing bodies. This allows the members of the municipality to have close contact with the population and analyze their problems.

"Gender commissions operating in municipalities in order to prevent cases of gender-based violence can identify families from the risk group and directly contribute to the formation of gender relations in those families," added S. Gahramanova.

Making a speech, Mrs. Zübeida Oyan, the representative of the Department of Economy, Culture and Press Relations of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Baku, highly appreciated Azerbaijan's activities in the direction of ensuring gender equality. She emphasized the importance of the work done in connection with the empowerment of women, especially in the labor market. She noted that the occurrence of violence leads to the weakening of women's participation in various spheres of society and the state of well-being, which in general causes the situation in the countries to become difficult.

Samuel Held, deputy director of the German International Cooperation Society (GIZ) for Azerbaijan, emphasized the importance of organizing today's conference within the framework of the 16-day activity campaign. S.Held drew attention to the information about the projects and measures implemented within the effective cooperation of GIZ with the State Committee for many years and noted that everyone in the society should fight together to fight against violence.

Later, the participants spoke about "The role of gender commissions in municipalities", "The role of gender commissions in preventing domestic violence", "Prevention of gender-based violence the role of municipalities in the procurement", "Experience of Gender Commissions", and brought to attention the information about the actions carried out within the framework of the activities of gender commissions in local self-governing bodies.

The presentation of the "Genderazerbaijan.com" portal, created within the framework of the joint cooperation of the State Committee and GIZ, was held after the speeches. Sevil Rasulzadeh, an employee of the Analytical Analysis and Information Assurance Department of the State Committee, noted the functioning mechanism of the state portal created for the first time in Azerbaijan in the field of gender equality, the goals of its creation, the organization of coordination between the gender responsible persons operating in this direction, and its important role as an information resource.