Pending sufficient interest, the ELI will proceed with launching the SIG, subject to approval.
SIG on Gender Equality
According to the Strategy for Gender Equality 2020-2025, gender mainstreaming should be the watchword. However, when it comes to giving substance to this slogan, the results are still lacking. The Special Interest Group (SIG) on Gender Equality aims to investigate the real possibilities of making gender mainstreaming effective by starting from two crucial areas for EU policies: green transition and artificial intelligence.
1. Environmental sustainability and gender equality represent essential objectives to achieve the enormous task of shifting the global economy to more sustainable models. Nonetheless, the processes related to these two objectives are rarely considered in terms of their connections and mutual interferences. With the ecological transition ongoing, a claim arose for a transition that could be “just”, by preventing possible negative effects of this great transformation from impacting on vulnerable groups of society, including women.
At the present, the most common areas where a gender aspect is integrated in environmental policy-making worldwide are the following: protecting women from adverse conditions due to climate change; promoting their empowerment in agriculture and forestry; increasing their participation in decision-making in environment-related sectors; and, promoting their access to green entrepreneurship and green jobs.
2. The increasing use of AI systems in the world of work has accelerated the search for the best policy and regulatory options and the EU is working to achieve this goal. The White Paper on Artificial Intelligence acknowledges that AI entails a number of potential risks, such as gender-based discrimination. The same approach has been shared by the Commission’s Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and by the UNESCO Report on Artificial Intelligence and Gender Equality in 2020.
In the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence “gender equality” appears to be a constant concern of the EU legislator. But how will this concern be implemented?
The general objectives of SIG will be to:
- exploring the gender-environment nexus and the gender-AI nexus in a comparative perspective;
- seminars of discussion with experts and possible publication of results;
- selection of good practices in a comparative law perspective;
- cooperation with other institutional actors to promote participation in research calls;
- formulation of policy recommendations.
More information on the SIG can be found on the document attached below.
Kindly express your interest to the ELI Secretariat via the email address.
