Economic gender equality is a requirement for a gender-equal society. With a focus on influence and participation, this project focused on the issue of women’s economic situation in the Nordic region. The goal was to facilitate a Nordic discussion on pensions, social insurances, the labour market and salary differentials from a gender equality perspective. Both private and societal aspects of the Nordic gender equality challenge were addressed through a total of four seminars, one in each country.

The project involved several women’s organisations via the umbrella organisation International Alliance of Women (IAW). The project raised the level of knowledge about Nordic gender inequality among policymakers, authorities and actors in civil society. The seminar in Finland was held during the election campaign and enabled the Feminist Association Unioni to reach out with the issue to a broad public.

The Nordic countries work closely with NATO, are present in conflict areas and participate in peace processes, but what priority do they give to issues related to women, peace and security? The organisations behind the project wanted to discuss this question at a seminar and workshop at the Nordic Forum in Malmö, Sweden in 2014. Their intention with these contributions was to promote networking between different Nordic actors and to introduce a broader audience to issues related to women, peace and security.

The seminar and workshop focused on Resolution 1325, which was adopted by the UN Security Council in 2000 to strengthen the protection of women in war and conflict and increase their participation in peace processes. The seminar targeted the public, researchers, authorities and civil society and focused on disseminating information about Resolution 1325 in a Nordic context and how far the different countries have come in their implementation of the resolution. Actors in civil society that work with women, peace and security issues in the Nordic region were invited to the workshop, and the chief aim was to share experiences and learn from each other. After the forum, the project submitted a document to the Nordic ministries and a foundation was laid for continued Nordic cooperation.

What can gender research contribute to political science research in the Nordic region? This question was the focus of the panel discussion at the conference titled Comparative Perspectives on Political Science and Gender held in December 2013.

At the panel discussion during the conference, the researchers said that the feminist public science research in the Nordic region has traditionally been strong in areas related to democracy and the welfare state. At the same time, they pointed to the inherent risk in the fact that it is more difficult for critical and theoretically oriented research to obtain research grants than it is for research linked to concrete gender equality work.

The project gave the participants increased knowledge about the situation of gender research in the different countries. The international representatives also gained a deeper understanding of the Nordic region.

In the year 2000, the leaders of the world ratified the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals with an aim to reduce global poverty by half in the 15-year period that followed.

The purpose of this project was to promote a Nordic dialogue on the most important future challenges in 2014. By arranging a seminar on the UN Millennium Goals at the Nordic Forum in Malmö, UN Women wanted to bring attention to the fact that poverty affects certain groups more than others.

Since 70 per cent of all people below the absolute poverty line are women, the gender equality perspective must be made a central aspect of the world’s work to reduce poverty. The seminar about Post 2015 at the Nordic Forum contributed to increasing the knowledge about the topic among representatives from the UN’s women’s committees, who could bring their new knowledge to their respective national governments for continued work to make a difference. One issue that was agreed upon is that violence against women as well as women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are of particular importance in this work.

The Swedish law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services went into effect in 1999 and has helped change the general view of prostitution. The law has become an important tool in the work against trafficking and has inspired other Nordic countries to change their approach. In 2009, Norway and Iceland passed similar laws, and in Denmark and Finland there is strong pressure to follow suit.

The network’s seminars at the Nordic Forum focused on the Nordic model and the resistance encountered in the work against the purchasing of sexual services. They also focused on the people who buy sex: Who are they? How do they justify their behaviour? How can attention be directed to the role of the buyer in prostitution? The seminar attracted a large crowd and the participants expressed that it gave them a good insight into why criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services is an important part of the work against prostitution.

The organisations that participated in the project gained increased knowledge about prostitution in the Nordic region and are continuing the work to spread the Nordic model together with organisations from across the Nordic region as well as Ireland and Germany.

The media – how gender equal are they and what does today’s media-critical activism look like? The organisations behind this project wanted to look closer at these questions by arranging two seminars at the Nordic Forum in Malmö, Sweden in 2014. One seminar focused on journalism and the other on media activism.

The project was based on the Beijing Platform and its aims of increasing the influence and non-stereotypical portrayal of women in media. The organisations hope that the seminars will stimulate the media-critical debate in the Nordic and Baltic regions. Allt är Möjligt Media Watch Group and Feministiskt Perspektiv arranged two seminars at the Nordic Forum together with ENUT, Estland and Stigamot, Iceland. The purpose of the project was to plan and hold the seminars, and also to network to stimulate the media-critical debate in the Nordic and Baltic regions. The activities resulted, amongst other things, in ideas for a Nordic web journal/web agency.

Inspired by the power handbook that Interfem had published in Sweden, this project wanted to promote the publication of a similar book in Finland.

During the course of the project, two Nordic network meetings were held with participants from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Denmark and Norway. The power handbook was written by women subject to racialisation, and presented specific experiences from the different countries.

The activities led to the formation of a new network for Nordic anti-racist feminists. The foundation for a leadership programme for young anti-racist feminists has been laid and material and tools for training of young anti-racist feminists have been developed.

Many Nordic municipalities and county councils are working actively to gender mainstream their operations and services, but sometimes the results are not disseminated well. How does the work differ among the Nordic countries and what can they learn from each other? These questions were on the agenda when the associations of local authorities arranged a joint workshop at the Nordic Forum in Malmö, Sweden in 2014. The network consisted of policymakers, practitioners and gender equality experts – over 100 people participated.

After the introductory meeting, the gender mainstreaming efforts in Nordic municipalities and county councils were documented with an ultimate aim to further improve the quality of the services citizens receive in the Nordic countries. The importance of integrating gender equality work in all operations was a key insight communicated to the participants. The participants also learned new methods and have continued their cooperation around gender mainstreaming after completing the project.

The purpose of the project was to enable researchers from different Nordic countries to bring attention to research on gender and transport.

Organisers of the project arranged a workshop at the Nordic Forum in Malmö 2014 and invited researchers, activists, organisations, decision makers and other actors involved in the areas of gender equality, sustainable development and transports to participate. The workshop kicked off the project and focused on gender, risks and vulnerability in traffic. In order to reduce the number of accidents and create more gender equal and sustainable transport policy, there is a need for an increased understanding of structures and sociocultural aspects in relation to traffic. One conclusion was that intersectionality and norm criticism can be useful tools in this work, and that decision makers need to be provided easily accessible information. A date for the next meeting in 2015 was also decided at the Nordic Forum. Both research organisations and policy makers were invited to this meeting, and the cooperation continues.

The project was launched to address the need for a gender equality focus in work with children and adolescents. At a seminar at the Nordic Forum in Malmö 2014, organisations from the Nordic and Baltic regions talked about how girls’ and boys’ group meetings can prevent violence and promote democracy and gender equality.

The organisations behind the project are having great success with the so-called girl and boy group method in the Nordic countries, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. The seminar gathered the different actors to exchange experiences and discuss how to jointly spread, develop and ensure a high quality of the method.

The method is based on a democratic and non-hierarchical dialogue between a small group of adolescents and their leader. The underlying idea is always the same: to strengthen the adolescents’ integrity, self-esteem and ability to cooperate and at the same time give them tools to question norms and handle conflicts. The network has continued to collaborate around the methods since the project ended.