Interview
Women Must Take
Responsibility For Their Careers
VIOLETA JOVANOVIĆ, Executive Director of NALED and President of Ethno Network To continue reducing the gender gap, a joint effort by all actors is needed: the state, companies, politicians, the media and women themselves, who should take responsibility for their careers and present the results of their work to the public without hesitation, something they often leave to men recently adopted law on gender equality is an important incentive for achieving equality and gender balance, which encourages an increasing number of women to take on leading positions in government, parliament and local government”, says Jovanović.
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f you Google the name Violeta Jovanović, executive director of NALED and president of Ethno Network, you immediately see the portal Women’s Government, which contains a database of about 1,500 professional women in Serbia. We asked Violeta how much closer we are symbolically and realistically to what this platform advocates today: equal respect for women and their ability to lead the most
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Empowered Women 2021
demanding departments in all spheres of social life. “In recent years, concrete progress has been made in improving gender equality in Serbia – a coordination body and the institution of an ombudsman for this area have been established, good practises such as gender budgeting, programmes for the prevention of domestic violence and strengthening reproductive health have been introduced. The
You lead an organisation that over time has become the right hand of the Government of Serbia in many reforms. Have you ever been told that a man would do your job better? At the beginning the job was almost nonexistent because the organisation needed to be built from the ground up. Today that is simply not an issue because NALED’s success has a strong stamp of capable and smart women. As the first employee in the organisation, I am proud that in its 15 years of existence, NALED has grown into one of the most recognisable and successful associations and think tanks in Serbia, and an unavoidable partner of the Government in key reform processes.
