25 August 2009, Chisinau—Non-discriminatory, equitable reflection of gender issues in the print and electronic media is the primary objective of the Media-Self-Assessment initiative launched by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) with the financial support the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) jointly with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) .

The initiative is a pioneer approach in promoting gender into media aimed at self-information of media institutions on gender imbalance and discrimination, to be achieved through an objective, methodical self-assessment of mass media own products, with a view to developing a gender balanced and equitable journalistic message.

The workshop organized was the first step towards reaching the goals of the initiative. The main objective of the workshop was consolidation of knowledge, exchange of experience among gender experts and journalists.

The workshop lasted one day, and was conducted by Ms. Loretta Handrabura, conf. dr., expert in gender. Presentations on specific related issues were also made by Ms. Alina Radu, gender expert who participated in the Media Monitoring through Gender Lens (undertaken in 2007-2009) and Mr. Claude Cahn, UN Human Rights Adviser.

At the workshop participated representatives of 7 local and regional newspapers and press agencies, both print and electronic, writing both in Romanian and Russian. The participants of the workshop were represented by executive directors, editors-in-chief, editors and reporters. The compined coverage of the 7 agencies present at the workshop reaches 89750 copies weekly, added a continuous stream of news in the electronic versions.

During workshop, the participants have been acknowledged with the results of the Media Monitoring and the statistic data on the percentage of representation of men and women in the media; then followed a session on fundamental concepts of gender issues; on tools and indicators of gender analysis. The last and most ample session was dedicated to gender-oriented language, which plays the key role in promoting gender equality. The participants at the training had a lot of questions, remarks, and the overall atmosphere of the training was a very active one, based not on lecturer-listeners relationship, but rather on a peer-to-peer strategy.

In participants opinion, the workshop was useful and served as an opportunity for journalists to better understand the key role the media has in promoting gender equality, as well as an opportunity to exchange opinions and to suggest ideas. During the workshop several media agencies came with initiative of further promoting the idea of equitable representation of gender issues among their colleagues as well.