Interactive, inclusive and action-oriented – designing policies to tackle inequality
From 24 to 28 June 2019, 15 policy makers from more than 12 countries came together in Brussels to take part in a specially designed training course on inequality. The training shed light on sensible issues regarding inequality and provided critical insights as well as useful skills to improve policies to promote equality.
The course combined traditional lectures, knowledge-sharing sessions and open discussions amongst participants. It provided participants with best practice examples of policy measures that can contribute to reducing inequality within countries, such as taxation, social protection or industrial policies.
During an entire week, a high degree of knowledge transfer was ensured through the engagement of 11 trainers, who are renowned academics and professionals from all over the world with distinct expertise in the field of inequalities.
Together with the lecturers, the participants assessed inequalities and put it in broader global contexts. As a result, the Professional Training Course on Inequality supported participants in overcoming difficulties in dealing with practical issues from their daily relevant work in their home countries.
The conclusions drawn from the various sessions comprise, among others, that existing policies do not have enough impact on inequality reduction, a comprehensive combination of policies is crucial, corruption needs to be tackled and political commitment must be stimulated.
Background
The Professional Training Course on Inequality was organized by GIZ on behalf of BMZ in collaboration with the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (Maastricht University) and the United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT). It was developed to sensitize its participants to the stand-alone and crosscutting Agenda 2030 goal “Reducing Inequalities” (SDG 10).
For more information on the training course, please see the Final Report (pdf)