Sweden Concerned about Gender Equality in Ukraine

A program in support of men- women partnership in politics called Olha has begun in Ukraine. Its organizers strive to at least double the number of women holding posts at all levels of power. Olha is being implemented in line with the UN development program in Ukraine by the Sprangbradan Swedish Consulting Company and financed by the Swedish International Development Agency.

Oksana Kuts, coordinator of the Gender in Development UN program, notes that this is the third Swedish-funded project. Experience of the previous two shows that such programs should be carried out jointly with men, “because women do not exist on a self-contained basis,” says Ms. Kuts. Olha’s creators believe that a society without a true cooperation between the sexes cannot be considered democratic. Here is an eloquent example: women make up 8% of the Ukrainian People’s Deputies. Several years ago, it was under 4%.

In 1966, the United Nations acknowledged Sweden as having the best conditions for women. The fateful breakthrough took place in 1994 when 44% of the seats in Parliament went to the ladies along with half the Cabinet portfolios. The last elections set another record: 60% of the Cabinet and 45.5% Parliament seats. Bonnie Bernstrom of Sprangbradan believes that Ukrainian women can also reach the fifty-fifty mark in the power elite, and do so even quicker than in Sweden where the process took a generation. Sweden’s current economic growth and almost nonexistent unemployment are evidence that the best results can be achieved with men and women acting as equal partners.

The Olha Program envisages seminars and educational tours, in the course of which the participants will work out specific action plans to increase the number of women in power. The name of the program was adopted in commemoration of Princess Olha, the first Christian ruler in Kyiv Rus’ who also introduced a new ideology.