About Fulton County’s Gender Equality Initiative

Fulton County, Georgia is the largest county in the state Georgia, in the southeastern United States, and home to more than 960,000 residents. Fulton County has a long history of initiatives in the interest of equality, including gender equality. In 2006, Fulton County was a sponsor for the first “Gender Equality for National and Local Governments 2006 Workshop,” hosted by UNITAR/CIFAL. This conference, with international participation, focused on the United Nation’s Third Millennium Development Goal, “the promotion of gender equality and empowerment for women”. This event highlighted possible areas of need in aligning Fulton County’s gender equality initiatives with others around the globe.

Shortly after the 2006 conference, we began a pilot Gender Equality Initiative , with internal data collection and work with an external consultant to give an overall view for the County.

In September 2007, Fulton County sponsored the “Gender Equality and Government: The America’s Forum,” and had the opportunity to present our approach to Gender Mainstreaming for establishing Gender Equality Projects.

We have progressed to establishment of an internal Gender Equality Taskforce, and have trained members in the concepts of Gender Equity. We have also conducted focus groups with professional-level employees to discuss the possible existence of barriers to the professional progression of women. In addition, we are launching training of key departments as part of the launch of Gender Budgeting among pilot departments, to begin in early 2008.

We are proud of our progress and realize that we still have much to do.

We are grateful to the leadership of Commissioner Nancy A. Boxill, who has spearheaded this initiative and paved the way to progress.