An international cooperation framework to reach gender equality in the media

From 7 to 10 December 2015, COPEAM took part in two main events on gender and media organised at Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The first one was the “International development cooperation meeting on gender and media”, organized by UNESCO in cooperation with the Government of Greece, GAMAG (Global Alliance on Media And gender), ITU, UN Women, OHCHR and other UN organizations.

The event was followed by the first General Assembly of GAMAG. Launched in Bangkok two years ago, the Alliance gathered, in its first Assembly, stakeholders and members from all over the world to carry forward the resolution of the International development cooperation meeting and to commit for actions on key areas.

In this framework, COPEAM was invited to contribute to the debates by presenting relevant and replicable cooperation activities considered as best practices to achieve gender equality in the media.

A focus was made on two domains of intervention consisting in the reinforcement of capacity building of public broadcasters in internal policies and practices and in the coordination of TV and radio co-productions aimed at promoting a non-stereotyped media narration.

In particular, two projects were presented. The ongoing multilateral "peer-to-peer" activity aimed at strengthening the capacities of the South-Mediterranean public broadcasters in favour of gender equality and women's empowerment in their inner policies and professional practices - organised in the framework of the EU-funded MedMedia project led by BBC Media Action; the Euro-Arab TV co-production “Inter-Rives IV: sports without borders”, realised in collaboration with ASBU (Arab States Broadcasting Union), including, also thanks to an awareness action promoted by COPEAM to encourage a cross-cutting gender approach, a large number of documentaries focused on young women and sports as means of their emancipation.