INTER PARES Partnership with the Parliament of Chile (Round III)

Activities

• Strengthening gender equality in parliament (Chamber of Deputies) - (4 exchanges between October 2021 and October 2022)

A workshop was held in October 2021 in which the INTER PARES Senior Gender Advisor introduced the use and implementation of gender-sensitive scrutiny in parliamentary work and experts from the Chamber of Deputies of Italy and Congress of the Deputies of Spain shared their experiences of gender-responsive budgeting. A follow-up workshop was held in November 2021 with the aim to introduce participants to gender-sensitive pre- and post-legislative scrutiny. This was followed by further exchanges in July and October 2022 with the INTER PARES Senior Gender Advisor to support the incorporation of a gender perspective in the work of the Department for legislative scrutiny. Specifically, it looked to strengthen the capacity of the department on gender-sensitive post-legislative scrutiny and support the development of tools for its implementation.

• Building capacity for monitoring decentralization processes (Chamber of Deputies) - (November 2021):

An exchange about comparative territorial arrangements and second
chamber was held in November 2021 in which 20 members of staff of the
Chamber of Deputies and the Constitutional Convention participated.
Experts shared information about the composition and role of the second
chambers in Germany and Spain to provide inputs to the constitutional
process.

• Strengthening diversity and inclusion policies (Senate) - (July - October 2022):

An exchange between the Personnel and Organizational Development Department of the Chilean Senate and experts and parliamentary staff from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Irish Houses of the Oireachtas, Spanish Congress of the Deputies and German Bundesrat was held in July 2022 to share experiences of the work carried out in EUMSPs to promote equality, diversity and inclusion amongst parliamentary staff. 21 parliamentary staff members participated from the Senate.

A follow up workshop on disability protocols and mainstreaming Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the parliamentary setting was held with the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team of the Houses of the Oireachtas in October 2022 in which ten members of staff of the Senate participated. It aimed to support the development of emergency and evacuation protocols that consider the needs of people with disabilities.

Outcomes

1. As a result of the workshop and follow up support to the Department for Legislative Scrutiny of the Chamber of Deputies, their post-legislative scrutiny methodology was modified and a checklist was adopted to mainstream a gender-perspective.

2. Knowledge amongst parliamentary staff of policies that can be adopted to support Equality, Diversity and Inclusion was increased.

3. As a result of the work with the Human Resources Department of the Senate, the frame of reference to the preparatory work for the new Senate equality policy has been broadened to include diversity and inclusion considerations.

4. An emergency and evacuation protocol for Senate premises that focuses on the needs of people with disabilities is currently being drafted, to be ready for review before December 2022.