The AER Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities was created in 2009 with the mandate of liaising with all the AER organs and mainstreaming all equal opportunity issues across AER.

Its membership consists of regional politicians and officers who are active in the field of equal opportunities.

The Standing Committee liaises with the other AER organs to ensure that equal opportunity issues are considered in all aspects of AER’s work.

For more information on the SCEO structure, please click here.

Monica Carlsson, County Commission of Norrbotten County Council (S), is the President of the AER Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities and has a long experience in gender equality issues.

The AER Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities was created by a decision of the AER General Assembly on 26 November 2009, in recognition of the importance of equal opportunities within AER’s work and the need to ensure that these issues are mainstreamed across the entire organisation.

Gender Equality has been a key priority within AER for many years – a working group on Gender Equality was created in the late 1990s. The Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities was preceded by the AER Observatory on Gender Issues, that operated within the framework of the AER Social Policy and Public Health Committee (Committee 2).

The mandate of the Standing Committee has been extended to cover all kinds of inequality, whether they are based on gender, ethnic or other origin, age, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or any other reason people can find to create categories among human beings. Gender Equality remains of course a core issue of the new Standing Committee, but it is reaching out to the other AER organs to ensure that equal opportunities are considered in all policy areas AER works in.