Non discrimination and gender equality: European year of equal opportunities for all 2007

This Commission Staff Working Document highlights key facts, figures and examples of the 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for All (EYEO) at both national and European level.

The evaluation of the EYEO focused on seven areas:

·         Relevance: in general, the stakeholders believed that the type of intervention represented by the EYEO was an appropriate way of addressing the challenges of equal opportunities;

·         Complementarity: the EYEO both complemented well and mutually reinforced other EU initiatives in the field of equal opportunities;

·         Implementation: overall, the implementation process and delivery mechanisms fully supported the attainment of the objectives of the EYEO;

·         Effectiveness: 434 Actions were successfully implemented involving 556 additional partner organisations. 1 710 further implemented activities received moral support across the 30 Participant Countries. The 434 Actions produced more than 1 600 concrete outputs, consisting of more than 1 000 meetings and events, circa 440 information and promotion campaigns and over 120 studies and surveys;

·         Efficiency: the expected outputs of the EYEO were achieved at a reasonable cost. Moreover, all the Participant Countries matched the EU grant at the national level and some supplied additional funding;

·         EU-added value: the EYEO produced a number of results, which could not have successfully evolved through national initiatives alone. However, the EU-wide information and promotional campaign contributed the least added value to the EYEO implementation at the national level;

·         Sustainability: overall, the results obtained by the EYEO were sustainable and likely to continue beyond 2007. In fact, according to the Action Leaders, almost 75% of the 434 Actions were expected to be sustained following the end of the EYEO.