In the Republic of North Macedonia, a comprehensive national strategic and legal framework exists to establish and promote gender equality in society. This includes the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, the Gender Equality Strategy 2022–2027, the National Plan for Gender Equality 2022–2024, and the National Strategy for Equality and Non-Discrimination 2022–2026, among others. These documents outline gender equality issues through a range of institutional commitments, measures, and activities.
In addition to national-level institutions, municipalities are also obligated to implement activities that promote gender equality at the local level. Under the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, local self-government units are required to respect and apply the principle of equal opportunities within their competencies. This entails promoting gender equality through both general and specific measures, as well as preparing annual plans for their implementation. Moreover, municipalities are mandated to integrate the principle of equal opportunities into their strategic plans and budgets, monitor the impact of their programs on women and men, and submit regular annual reports. Municipalities are also expected to actively participate in drafting the national gender equality strategy, particularly regarding issues relevant to local self-government. Additionally, they must establish equal opportunities commissions and appoint coordinators to oversee this area.
However, in the past two years, some municipalities, influenced by anti-gender associations and activists, have made amendments to their annual equal opportunities programs and altered gender-related terminology. These interventions have limited the concept of gender equality exclusively to the binary gender dimension, thereby narrowing its broader meaning and application.
In response to this, the NGO Info-center, in collaboration with partner organizations – Spektar from Kriva Palanka, the Women’s Organization from Strumica, the Civic Initiative of Women from Sveti Nikole, and Aktivo from Veles—conducted monitoring to evaluate whether municipalities have adopted annual programs and strategic frameworks for gender equality. The monitoring also assessed whether changes had been made to these programs concerning gender concepts and terminology.
The monitoring covered the period from 2022 to 2024 (up to September) and was conducted in eight municipalities: Kriva Palanka, Kumanovo, Veles, Strumica, Sveti Nikole, Lozovo, Bosilovo, and Novo Selo. Requests for access to public information were submitted to all municipalities, and further research included reviewing municipal websites and media reports related to the monitoring topics and the respective municipalities.
This activity was carried out as part of the project “Active Citizens and Participatory Democracy at the Local Level”, supported by the Olof Palme International Center from Sweden.
Key findings
Although all municipalities are obligated to integrate gender equality in line with the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and relevant strategic documents, monitoring revealed uneven implementation at the local level, with significant disparities between municipalities.
Most of the monitored municipalities lack their own strategic frameworks for promoting gender equality, though nearly all have adopted annual programs for equal opportunities. However, the functioning of equal opportunities commissions within municipalities is suboptimal. These commissions are neither particularly active nor sufficiently transparent, rarely convening, and none of the municipalities provided minutes of their meetings from the past three years.
In 2023, as many as five municipalities – Strumica, Kumanovo, Sveti Nikole, Bosilovo, and Novo Selo – introduced changes to their annual programs, replacing the term “gender” with “sex.” These modifications are not merely linguistic but represent a significant conceptual shift. The substitution of “gender” with “sex” fundamentally alters the approach to equal opportunities policies at the local level. This change reduces municipalities’ capacity to address complex gender issues and seriously undermines gender equality as a strategic goal.
By narrowing the scope of measures, these changes exclude broader aspects of gender equality, such as gender roles, stereotypes, and gender-based violence. This shift marginalizes vulnerable groups, including the LGBTI+ community, and diminishes institutional accountability for integrating a gender perspective into public policies.
Read the full report from the monitoring “Municipalities and Gender Equality”.
