Gender Equality Index 2021 conference - eige.europa.eu

European Institute forGender Equality

Gender Equality Index 2021 conference

Did you miss the conference? Watch the highlights!

AgendaTime refers to CET09:30 – 10:00 Online registration

Event moderator

About the conferenceEIGE revealed the new scores for gender equality in the EU and showed trends over time during an

online event on 28 October 2021. Decision-makers and experts discussed the ndings of the

Gender Equality Index, and highlighted areas where the EU can improve.

The conference also explored the 2021 special focus of the Index: health. We dove into the effects

of the coronavirus pandemic and looked at the topics of mental and sexual and reproductive

health.

Read more about the Gender Equality Index2021

10:00 – 10:20 WelcomeCarlien Scheele, Director, European Institute for Gender Equality, EIGE

Helena Dalli, Commissioner for Equality, European Commission

Janez Cigler Kralj, Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities,

Slovenia

Hans Henri P. Kluge, Director, World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for

Europe

Jack Parrock, Journalist and Conference Moderator10:20 – 10:40 Gender Equality Index 2021: Fragile gains, big losses

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This is the moment to reveal the new scores for gender equality in the EU and all Member

States.

Tune in to see:

During this panel, we will look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different groups of

women and men, and discuss how we can make the most of the EU’s recovery and resilience

facility to improve gender equality in Europe.

Speakers

11:40 – 12:00 Break12:00 – 13:00 Three parallel, moderated breakout sessions

From more men dying from the virus to more women experiencing ‘long COVID’, this session

will explore some of the gendered health patterns emerging from the pandemic. The session

will also provide policymakers with ideas about how to make sure health policies are more

gender-sensitive.

Presentation by

Speakers

If your country has improved its ranking or dropped down a notch

What is boosting gender equality and what is dragging us down

How the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting gender equality10:40 – 11:40 How can we put gender equality at the core of Europe’s Covid-19 recovery?

Dragos Pislaru, Member of the European Parliament

Alba González Sanz , Advisor to the Minister for Equality, Spain

Maria Teresa Fabregas Fernandez, Director for Recovery and Resilience II, Recovery

and Resilience Task Force, European Commission

Dr. Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director, Division of Country Health Polices and

Systems, WHO Regional Office for Europe

SESSION 1: What impact has COVID-19 had on health and gender equality?

Blandine Mollard, Researcher, EIGE

Evelyn Regner, Member of the European Parliament, Chair of the Committee on2

Moderator

How did restrictions and longer waiting times for some sexual and reproductive health

services impact women and girls? Did telemedicine help to make some sexual and

reproductive health services more accessible? We will discuss how the pandemic affected

this area of healthcare, and also take a look at what countries can do to improve long-term,

for example by including consent in school sexuality education and involving men in family

planning and contraceptive use.

Presentation by

Speakers

Moderator

Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

Janez Poklukar, Minister of Health, Slovenia

Isabel de la Mata, Principal Advisor for Health and Crisis Management, Directorate

General for Health and Food Safety, European Commission

Isabel Yordi Aguirre, Program Manager, Gender and Rights, Office for Investment for

Health and Development, WHO Regional Office for Europe

Prof. Sarah Hawkes, Director, Centre for Gender and Global Health, University College

London UK

Jack Parrock, Journalist and Conference ModeratorSESSION 2: How did COVID-19 affect sexual and reproductive health?

Maruša Gortnar, Head of Operations Unit, EIGE

Predrag Fred Matic, Member of the European Parliament

Petra Bayr, President, European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive

Rights

Caroline Hickson, Regional Director, International Planned Parenthood Federation

European Network

Giovanna Lauro, PhD, Vice President of Programs and Research, Promundo

Rasa Tapiniene, JournalistSESSION 3: What is the situation of mental health in the EU?

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This session will look at the different mental health issues women and men are facing in the

EU. Parents can burn out from work-life balance pressures, men are often reluctant to seek

help because it’s seen as ‘unmanly’, and many young people are living with anxiety. We will

speak about what policymakers can do to better support people with their mental health

struggles in Europe.

Presentation by

Speakers

Moderator

You will have possibility to meet EIGE team, who developed EIGE Gender Equality Index 2021

and its thematic focus report on Health. During this interactive session you can raise

questions related to the scores of Gender Equality Index 2021 and discuss EU MS progress

towards full gender equality. Questions, related to EIGE's research on gender and health will

also be addressed.

Jolanta Reingardė, Team Leader - Research and Statistics, EIGE

Salla Saastamoinen, Acting Director-General, Directorate Justice and Consumers,

European Commission

Ledia Lazeri, Regional Adviser for Mental Health at WHO Regional Office for Europe

Claudia Marinetti, Director, Mental Health Europe

Elizabeth Gosme, Director COFACE Families Europe

Neil Kelders, Mental Health Speaker, Wellbeing Consultant

Alexandrina Satnoianu, Visual and social media coordinator, EIGE13:00 – 13:15 Closing

Carlien Scheele, Director, EIGE

Katalin Cseh, Member of the European Parliament13:15 – 14:15 “Ask the Expert” – interactive question and answer session with experts

Jolanta Reingardė, Team Leader - Research and Statistics, EIGE

Blandine Mollard, Researcher, EIGE

Davide Barbieri, Statistics Officer, EIGE

Lina Salanauskaite, Researcher / Analyst, EIGE

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Facilitator

Moderators

Mr Parrock has extensive experience in moderating panels and hosting international events.

He is a TV and radio correspondent with extensive broadcasting and live event experience.

He is currently working across a number of channels from Brussels after spending 18

months as an EU correspondent for Euronews in Brussels ling engaging stories from across

the European Union. Prior to this, he spent 5 years with the international news agency Feature

Story News - moving from correspondent to become the Brussels bureau chief.

Veronica Collins, Acting Team Leader – Communications, EIGE

Jack Parrock

Alexandrina Satnoianu

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Ms Satnoianu is currently the Visuals and Social Media Coordinator at the European Institute

for Gender Equality (EIGE), where she has been working for the last eleven years. Her core

tasks refer to translating the technical work of the Institute into engaging content and

attractive visual solutions for policy-makers, media, and ultimately the general public.

Previously, she worked with the Romanian Ministry of European Integration where she

coordinated a national awareness-raising campaign informing women about the equal rights

and non-discrimination framework, set in the process of Romania’s accession to the EU. She

has a Master’s degree in Gender Studies and a second Master in Marketing and

Communications.

Ms Tapiniene is a TV and radio journalist with more than 20 years of broadcasting and live

event experience. She is currently working at Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT (Lithuanian

National Radio and Television) as a news anchor and a host of two other TV programmes.

She is an experienced moderator of various panels and host of international events.

Speakers

Rasa Tapiniene

Dr. Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat

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Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat is the Director, Division of Country Health Polices and Systems,

WHO Regional O ce for Europe.

She is a medical doctor, a specialist in public health, and the author of several publications in

public health and European health policy.

Following her quali cation as a medical doctor, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat worked in various areas

in the health sector in Malta, including maternal and child health, mental health, and primary

care.

Since 1999, Natasha has been a resident academic at the University of Malta, teaching in the

department of health services management and public health. Between 2001 and 2013, she

occupied various senior positions in the Ministry of Health in Malta, including that of Chief

Medical O cer. Before joining WHO, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat served as President of the

European Public Health Association (EUPHA) from 2016 to 2020, where she was actively

involved in health advocacy at the European level.Davide Barbieri

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Davide is the Statistics O cer at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), involved in

the analysis and elaboration of Gender Equality Index, producing analysis and statistics

elaboration on Beijing Platform of Actions (BPfA) areas of concerns and administrative data

sources on gender-based violence.

He has previously worked as senior researcher in policy evaluation, development and

implementation of methodologies and techniques for the analysis and evaluation public

policies. He has worked for years in projects related to gender equality policies and labour

market with particular attention to the introduction of gender perspective into the projects

and programs nanced by Structural Funds.

Petra Bayr is a Member of the Austrian National Council since 2002 and SPÖ spokesperson

for global development. She is currently President of the European Parliamentarian Forum on

Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF), Chairperson of the Committee on Equality and Non-

Discrimination at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Coucil of Europe, Member of the

Committee on Strategy, Investment and Policy of the International Planned Parenthood

Federation, and Board Member and Treasurer of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA).

Petra Bayr

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Photo credit: Petra Spiola

Janez Cigler Kralj is the Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities,

Slovenia. He is also the head of the NSi Workers' Association, an organisational unit within

the NSi and a member of two EU-level workers' organisations: the EZA and EUCDW. Since

2019, he has been a member of the presidency of the EUCDW (European Union of Christian

Democratic Workers), an important workers' organisation within the EPP. He was also actively

involved in the work of the EZA (das Europäische Zentrum für Arbeitnehmerfragen –

European Centre for Workers' Questions). As part of this, he regularly worked with

representatives of trade unions and employers from Slovenia and the entire EU. The main

objective of these organisations is to foster social dialogue.

Veronica Collins is a Communications O cer at EIGE. She has worked on women’s rights

throughout her career, starting with advocacy in the European Parliament, followed by the

U.N. in Kosovo and a Burmese NGO in Myanmar. She has an MSc in EU policymaking from

University College London, and a BA in English Literature from the University of Bristol.

Janez Cigler Kralj

Veronica Collins

Katalin Cseh

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Katalin studied medicine in Budapest and health economics in the Netherlands before she

started her political career at Momentum Movement, a newly established centre-progressive

party. She was one of the founding members of the party and later she became a candidate

for the European Parliamentary elections. After taking up her mandate in the European

Parliament, she was elected for the position of Vice-President of Renew Europe. Katalin is

working actively as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Human

Rights, the Committee on Regional Development and the Committee on Budgetary Control.

She is an active member of the European Parliament’s Gender Mainstreaming Network, as

well as the bureau member of the Anti-Corruption Intergroup. Katalin is also the Chair of

Renew Europe’s Working Group on Values and Democracy. As a young female representative,

she is here to remind everyone that politics is not a man’s game.

Helena Dalli is the rst EU Commissioner for Equality since December 2019. Her role is to

deliver on the Union of Equality chapter within the Political Guidelines of President von der

Leyen, by strengthening Europe’s commitment to equality and inclusion in all of its senses.

Helena Dalli

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Prior to taking her role as Commissioner, Dalli held various political roles in Malta including

Member of Parliament (1996 to 2019), Minister for European Affairs and Equality (2017 to

2019), and Minister for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties (2013-2017).

She was also opposition Shadow Minister for public administration, equality, public

broadcasting and national investments (1998-2013) and Junior Minister for Women's Rights

in the O ce of Prime Minister (1996-1998). Dalli holds a PhD in Political Sociology from the

University of Nottingham, and lectured in Economic and Political Sociology, Public Policy, and

Sociology of Law at the University of Malta.

Ms. Maria Teresa Fabregas is, since August 2020, one of the Directors in the Task Force

RECOVER in the European Commission, in charge of the implementation of the Recovery and

Resilience Facility. Maria Teresa joined the European Commission in 1997. Since then she

has worked in the Directorate-General for Enterprise, the Directorate-General for Trade, the

Directorate-General for the Internal Market, the Directorate-General for Financial Stability,

Financial Services and Capital Markets Union where she became Head of Unit and the

Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union where she was appointed Director for

Indirect Taxation and Tax Administration.

Maria Teresa Fabregas Fernandez

Alba González Sanz

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Alba González Sanz is an advisor to the Spanish Minister of Equality. She has previously

worked as a parliamentary assistant in Congress and a councilwoman. She holds a PhD in

Gender and Diversity, a Master in Gender Equality in Human, Legal and Social Sciences and a

Master in Gender and Diversity. Her academic research focuses on the construction of

women's citizenship in Spain through the analysis of feminist essays between the eighteenth

and twentieth centuries.

Maruša Gortnar is the Head of Operations Unit at the European Institute for Gender Equality

(EIGE). She is responsible for managing, strategic planning and implementation of the

institute’s work in the areas of research and data collection, gender mainstreaming and

gender-based violence. Before joining EIGE she worked for many years in the area of gender

equality in the Slovenian Government, latterly leading the Equal Opportunities Division of the

Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. A graduate of the Faculty

of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, she holds an MA Degree in Gender Studies

from the Central European University.

Marusa Gortnar

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As a gender expert, she has been involved in project management, development and

implementation of gender equality policies, including gender mainstreaming; cooperation

with EU institutions and international organisations. She was a member of different EU and

national bodies for gender equality (e.g. Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for

Women and Men, High-Level Group on Gender Mainstreaming, EIGE’s Management Board,

Government’s Expert Council on Gender Equality and the Working Group for Human Rights).

Elizabeth Gosme is mother of two rebel girls (6 and 10 years) and Director of COFACE

Families Europe, a network of 50 + organisations across 23 countries promoting the well-

being, health and security of families and their members in a changing society. She holds a

Bachelor of Arts in music&languages from Durham University and a Masters in

Contemporary European studies from the universities of Bath, Siena and Sciences Po Paris.

She is an EU social policy analyst with nineteen years of experience in EU affairs representing

the interests of civil society organisations. She has worked extensively with various EU

institutions contributing to building a social policy architecture for Europe, monitoring key

frameworks such as the EU social open method of coordination, the EU Semester, the

European Structural and Investment Funds, EU public procurement legislation, the EU urban

agenda, EU-SILC monitoring in preparation of the 2011 population and housing census, EU

work-life balance directive, EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, EU Child Guarantee,

European Pillar of Social Rights, taking part in key stakeholder consultative groups for these

different frameworks. She has also worked with national governments and local authorities

from across Europe, supporting the development of effective policies to tackle and prevent

homelessness.

Elizabeth Gosme

Prof. Sarah Hawkes

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Sarah Hawkes is a medical doctor with a degree in sociology and a PhD in epidemiology. She

is Professor of Global Public Health at University College London where she leads a research

theme analysing the use of research evidence in policy processes, particularly in relation to

gender equality and health equity. Sarah is Director of the UCL Centre for Gender and Global

Health, co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health, and co-Director and

co-founder of Global Health 50/50 which advances action and accountability for gender

equality in global health. She has lived and worked for much of the past 25 years in Asia,

where she has gathered evidence, collaborated to strengthen capacity, and operated at the

interface of policy and research communities – working alongside national Governments, UN

agencies and civil society organisations promoting gender equality, health equity and human

rights in health policies and programmes. Caroline Hickson

14

Caroline Hickson has been the Regional Director of the International Planned Parenthood

Federation European Network (IPPF EN) since 2016. IPPF is a global federation of 133

Member Associations and partners working across 166 countries in all continents to deliver

sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, particularly underserved women, girls and

young people. The European Network comprises thirty member organisations across Europe

and Central Asia, with the secretariat o ce based in Brussels. Caroline is originally from

Ireland and holds a master’s in International Relations. She has worked in the INGO sector for

over 30 years across the USA, Ireland, the UK, Germany and Belgium covering a variety of

sectors including health and homelessness, international development, human rights and

trade.

Neil specialises in the areas of Performance Coaching, Mentoring, Mental Health & Wellbeing

Consulting.

Neil Kelders

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He completed his degree in Sports, Health & Nutrition Development. Later combining working

full-time and his Law Studies and was ready to sit the Kings Inns Bar exams, before deciding

to set up his own business and follow his passion. Neil has worked with a diverse range of

target groups with the objective of inspiring people to take action in order to manage their

own mental health and wellbeing in a safe and supported environment.

Neil has often been found over the years on National, Regional and Local Radio and national

newspapers discussing his views on a wide range of wellbeing issues, in particular providing

solution-based views to mental health problems. Neil was the focus of a European

documentary in Athens; ‘Back on Track’, in which he gives a thought-provoking insight into his

journey with mental health problems.

Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge began his term as WHO Regional Director for Europe on 1 February

2020.

He has 25 years of experience in medical practice and public health in numerous settings

around the world. Having quali ed in medicine, surgery and obstetrics his international

experience started working in Liberia and Somalia, coordinating a tuberculosis (TB) control

programme and providing medical and public health services in con ict zones. Dr Kluge’s

work for MSF in the area of TB control continued with a posting coordinating programmes in

prisons in Siberia, and then as the Regional TB Advisor for former Soviet Union countries in

Moscow, Russian Federation.

Hans Henri P. Kluge

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Dr Kluge joined WHO in 1999, at the WHO Country O ce in the Russian Federation and later

become Team Leader for the 3 diseases unit (HIV, TB and malaria) at the WHO Country O ce

in Myanmar, as well as worked as a consultant to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

on TB. In 2009, Dr Kluge moved to the WHO Regional O ce for Europe, and the following year

was appointed Director of the Division of Health Systems and Public Health, and Special

Representative of the Regional Director to Combat Multi/Extensively Drug-Resistant

Tuberculosis.

Giovanna Lauro is the Vice President of Programs & Research at Promundo. She has worked

for over fteen years on the promotion of sexual reproductive health and rights and the

prevention of gender-based violence through gender-transformative approaches - including a

focus on transforming masculinities by engaging men and boys in partnership with women,

girls, and individuals of all gender identities.

Prior to joining Promundo, Giovanna worked at the United Nations Foundation as Associate

Director of the Women and Population Programme. She also worked on issues of diversity,

race, and ethnicity at the London School of Economics, and researched harmful traditional

practices at the University of Oxford, where she attained her doctorate in Political Science.

Her previous degrees include a Master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced

International Studies with a focus on Public Health, and a BA from the University of Bologna.

Regional Adviser for Mental Health at WHO Regional O ce for Europe

Giovanna Lauro, PhD

Ledia Lazeri

Claudia Marinetti

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Claudia Marinetti is director at Mental Health Europe (MHE) and has extensive expertise in

the areas of health and its social determinants, well-being and equity. With 15 years of

experience in management, policy, advocacy and research, Claudia has worked across

sectors to improve the well-being of people, including a focus on approaches based on

human rights, access to quality services, Health in All Policies, and social inclusion.

Prior to joining MHE, she worked for EuroHealthNet, a not-for-pro t partnership working on

public heath, disease prevention, health promotion, and inequality reduction. She has

conducted research for K.U.Leuven and other research institutions. Claudia is a graduate of

the University of Padua (Italy) and holds a PhD in Social and Applied Psychology from the

University of Oxford (UK).

Isabel de la Mata, Principal Adviser for Health and Crisis Management in the European

Commission.

Isabel de la Mata

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Previously she was Health Counsellor at the Spanish Representation to the European Union,

Deputy Director General for Health Planning at the Spanish Ministry of Health and other posts

at national and regional level. She has worked with the WHO, PAHO and Interamerican

Development Bank.

Isabel is a Graduated in Medicine and Surgery and Specialist in Preventive Medicine and

Public Health.

Social democrat, politician, teacher by profession.

A former minister in the government of the Republic of Croatia (2011-2016) and a Member of

Croatian Parliament (2016-2019) with a focus on the protection of vulnerable groups.

Author of the Law on the Rights of Victims of Sexual Violence during the Armed Aggression

against the Republic of Croatia in the Homeland War.

Today an MEP and an active member/sub-member of the FEMM, CULT and PECH committee.

Rapporteur for the le on The situation of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU,

in the frame of women’s health.

Predrag Fred Matic

Blandine Mollard

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Blandine Mollard works as a member of the Research and Indices Team of the European

Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in Vilnius. Her work has focused on developing the

measurement of the phenomenon of violence against women in the EU in the context of the

Gender Equality Index.

She also authored EIGE’s report on gender, youth and digitalisation in the context of the

Austrian presidency of the Council of the European Union as well as several chapters of the

2019 edition of the Gender Equality Index focusing on Work-Life Balance. Before joining EIGE

in 2016, she worked on Research and Statistics on gender issues in the Paci c Island Region

for the Secretariat of the Paci c Community and in the Gender Coordination Unit of the

International Organization for Migration in Geneva.

Dragoș Pîslaru is a Romanian economist and politician. He is member of the European

Parliament since 2019 on behalf of USRPLUS, a liated to the European political family

Renew Europe.

Dragos Pislaru

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Dragos is the Renew Group of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs coordinator, a

member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, and a Subcommittee member on

Tax Matters. Dragoș Pîslaru was the co-rapporteur of the Recovery and Resilience Facility

(RRF), the largest nancial instrument created by the European Union for the economic

recovery of the Union after the pandemic.

He is a graduate of the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE) in Bucharest with a Bachelor's

Degree in International Economics. He holds a Master of Science in International Relations

from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Diploma of

Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. He obtained a PhD in economic sciences at

the Romanian Academy.

Janez Poklukar is the Minister of Health, Slovenia. He took the o ce on 23 February 2021.

2019-2021 he headed the University Clinical Centre Ljubljana, the major health institution in

the region and the country, where he was facing both the di cult nancial situation of the

hospital and renovation process, as well as the challenges arising from the spreading SARS

CoV-2 epidemic (COVID- 19). Under his leadership, the hospital successfully tackled all

di cult conditions. Within ten days, the management team completed the renovation of the

premises, which had been an ongoing process for 12 years, and got the facilities working

again at the most critical moment.

2014-2019 Janez Poklukar was leading the Jesenice General Hospital.

Janez Poklukar

Evelyn Regner

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Evelyn Regner is a European politician of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and

Member of the European Parliament, since she was rstly elected in 2009.

As trade unionist and feminist, Evelyn Regner's main focus has always been on labour and

women's-related affairs. She is the voice of workers and taxpayers when it comes to

regulation of companies and nancial markets, and is standing up for women's rights and

gender equality. In her current mandate, she was elected chair of the Committee on Women's

Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) and is a member of the Committee on Economic and

Monetary Affairs (ECON).

Jolanta Reingarde PhD has been a senior researcher/analyst at the European Institute for

Gender Equality (EIGE) since 2010. She leads the programme on research and statistics. The

development of the Gender Equality Index and annual progress reports on the

implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in the EU are two major research areas of

the programme.

Jolanta Reingarde

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Jolanta studied Sociology at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania), followed by a

Ph.D on violence against women. She also has wide experience researching EU gender

equality policies, measurement of gender equality, gender equality and economy, and work-

life balance.

Salla Saastamoinen has been acting Director General of the European Commission’s

Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers since February 2020, overseeing a wide range

of policy areas, including civil and criminal justice, fundamental rights, data protection, rule of

law, equality, citizenship and consumer protection. She is also Director for Civil and

Commercial Justice since October 2016. Previously she was the Director for Equality as from

2014. As Director for Civil and Commercial Justice, she is in charge of the development and

consolidation of the European area of civil justice, in particular of civil procedural law, private

international law, contract law and company law. Salla Saastamoinen has worked in the

Commission for 20 years, starting in the Directorate-General for Environment and then

working in several areas in the Directorate-General for Justice. Before joining the

Commission, Salla Saastamoinen was an associate partner in a law o ce in Helsinki,

Finland. She has a licentiate degree in law from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and post-

graduate studies in law from the universities of Saarbrücken, Germany and Zürich,

Switzerland.

Salla Saastamoinen

Lina Salanauskaite

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Dr. Lina Salanauskaite is a researcher at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE),

where she joined in 2016. She leads and conducts analysis on various gender equality issues,

ranging from in relation to labour market and educational issues to the COVID-19 pandemic

impact.

Prior to EIGE, Lina Salanauskaite worked in the EU Commission and across a few academic

institutions. Lina Salanauskaite holds PhD in Social Economics and Social Sciences from

Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Antwerp (Belgium) universities and has an extensive

research experience in the analysis of gender equality and in the analysis of diverse socio-

economic issues, including social inclusion trends, effectiveness of social protection policies

or labour market development.

Carlien Scheele is the Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in Vilnius,

Lithuania.

Carlien Scheele

24

At EIGE’s helm since February 2020, she oversees the Institute's strategic programmes of

activities and budgets. Ms Scheele aims to cement EIGE’s position as the EU’s knowledge

centre on gender equality and deepen collaboration within and beyond Europe. Before taking

up her post at EIGE, Ms Scheele worked as a Senior Gender Equality Adviser/Senior Human

Resources Adviser in the Council of Europe, seconded from the Dutch government.

Previously, she worked as the Director for Gender and LGBT Equality for the Dutch

government, where she coordinated the national gender and LGBT equality policies.

Isabel has been responsible for the gender and health area of work in the WHO Regional

O ce for Europe since 2007, rst based in Copenhagen and more recently in Venice where

WHO has the O ce for Health and Development as part of the Division of Country Health

Policies and Systems. Isabel developed the area of gender and health in the Regional O ce,

coordinating the development of the WHO strategies on men and on women’s health,

promoting the work on gender in technical areas, such as NCDs, promoting the use of gender

statistics and assisting technical programmes and countries in mainstreaming gender in

health policies and programmes.

Isabel holds a master on Political Science by Universidad Complutense and an M.B.A. from

the Instituto de Empresa both in Madrid. She started her international career as an intern

1990 at the Centre of Human Rights in Geneva and continued in 1991 as JPO with UNDP in

New Delhi. Since then, she has been working with UN agencies in the area of gender, health

and human rights for more than 25 years in Asia, Latin America and Europe.

VideosGender Equality Index 2021: Opening, results, panel "How can we putgender equality at the core of Europe’s Covid-19 recovery?" andclosingGender Equality Index 2021: Three parallel, moderated breakout

Isabel Yordi Aguirre

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sessionsSESSION 1: What impact has COVID-19 had on health and gender equality?SESSION 2: How did COVID-19 affect sexual and reproductive health?SESSION 3: What is the situation of mental health in the EU?

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