Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN) member organization held a roundtable on 29 November in Lipjan on allocating the budget for subsidies in the economy sector to support women entrepreneurs.
During this meeting the family friendly policies and the inclusion of the criterion of these policies in the calls for subsidies have been discussed.
The trainer in this workshop, Fitim Sadiku, has emphasized that the main purpose of the subsidies should be the empowerment of women and the promotion of family friendly policies.
“Through the creation of these opportunities the employment and in particular the employment of women would be promoted. Thus, the businesses should offer flexible hours, reduced working hours, paternity leave, financial allowances for special cases and child care spaces,” he said.
Whereas, Adelina Tërshani, the KWN Project Coordinator, has stated that the small municipalities can often be seen as an example to other larger municipalities.
“Promoting these policies is more problematic in small municipalities, but it is important to do it, as the small municipalities can be examples of success to other larger municipalities,” she said.
Hyra Bytyqi, the Lipjan assembly councillor, has stressed that the discussions on family friendly policies are very important. According to her, these policies should be included as a criterion in the regulation.
“I think that this can be done if we address this request as a group of women MPs in Lipjan. I know that the municipality has decided to support women. The municipality can benefit from it, too, and I think that the municipality will support this idea and develop these policies,” she said.
During this advocacy roundtable the examples of companies that are implementing family friendly policies have been shared and the benefits of the employer and the employee from these friendly policies have been shown.
The initiative “Promoting Family Friendly Policies at the Local Level” was supported by the United Nations Population Fund in Kosovo (UNFPA) via KWN’s initiative “Expanding Choices: Gender-Responsive Family Policies for the Private Sector in the Western Balkans and Moldova,” financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation.
