The Municipality of Kristiansand seeks to play an active role in the development of public services and in the participation of research projects, both in Norway and across Europe. This page has been established to provide information about the Municipality of Kristiansand’s work related to gender equality, inclusion, and diversity, as well as its compliance with the requirements for Gender Equality Plans (GEPs).
In March 2015, the City Council adopted a common strategy outlining how the municipality, in all its roles and responsibilities, shall work to promote equality, inclusion, and diversity. The strategy encompasses residents, service users, and employees alike. Following the municipal restructuring on 1 January 2020, the strategy continues to guide the work of the City of Kristiansand and will remain in force until a new plan is adopted.
The strategy provides a shared framework and direction for equality initiatives across the municipality. We regard diversity as a valuable asset and are committed to being a leading municipality in the advancement of equality, inclusion, and diversity:
The Citiy of Kristiansand was one of the first organizations to be certified through the Equal Working Life certification program, created by Agder County Municipality, the regional authority for Agder County in southern Norway. Kristiansand was first certified as an Equal Working Life workplace in 2018 and successfully obtained recertification in 2022 and 2025.
Equal Working Life is a knowledge-based national certification scheme for organizations that wish to work systematically with gender equality, inclusion, and diversity. Its objective is to contribute to a working life where everyone is treated equally and fairly, regardless of gender, age, disability, ethnic background, sexual orientation, beliefs, or life circumstances. The certification scheme is suitable for both private and public sector organizations.
Likestilt arbeidsliv | English on Vimeo
One of the requrements of the program is to create and action plan, which is avalable on the website of the City. ( In Norwegian: handlingsplan-2025---2028-kristiansand-som-likestilt-arbeidsplass.pdf).
The Action Plan is structured around the following key thematic areas:
The Municipality of Kristiansand regards equality, inclusion, and diversity work as an integral part of its overall mission and operations. This commitment is clearly reflected in the strategy “It’s All About People! Strategy for Equality, Inclusion and Diversity, Kristiansand Municipality 2015-2022”.
Efforts to promote equality, inclusion, and diversity are intended to be embedded in the municipality’s daily operations, with each manager and employee bearing individual responsibility for contributing to these objectives.
At the same time, the municipality has recognized the importance and necessity of establishing a dedicated position with responsibility for equality, inclusion, and diversity. This position is an Advisor for Diversity, Equality & Inclusion (DEI), a part of the staff og the Director for Culture and Inter-citizen Dialogue at Kristiansand Municipality.In addition, further resources have been allocated through a 50 percent position that supports this work.
All directorates of the municipality are represented in these efforts through participation in a dedicated Equality, Inclusion and Diversity Resource Group. The group meets monthly and plays a central role in both policy development and the planning and implementation of internal and external events that promote awareness and engagement on these issues.
All Norwegian employers are obliged to work actively, targeted and systematically to promote equality and prevent discrimination in the workplace. The employer activity duty is preventative work that employers are expected to do before incidents of discrimination occur. Such incidents can be very stressful for the employee and the employer to handle. In addition, individual cases of discrimination rarely lead to structural change. The activity duty is important as a preventive measure.
The general activity duty states that all employers must identify and address challenges regarding equality and diversity in the workplace before any incidents of discrimination take place. On this page, you will find information on the legal framework and the four-step working method that employers must comply with and report on. All public sector employers and private sector employers of a certain size (50+ employees) must comply with the four-step working method. This work must be done in collaboration with employee representatives or trade union representatives. Source: The activity duty and the duty to issue a statement - LDO
The Municipality of Kristiansand meets these requirements as in the official 2025 annual report and financial statements on the Kristiansand kommune årsrapport portal.
As mention earlier, all directorates of the municipality participate with representatives in a dedicated Equality, Inclusion and Diversity Resource Group. The have a responsebillity to bring back to their part of the organisation what is beeing discussed in the meetings.
The Human reasource departement is well represented in the group, bringing awareness to the people in HR Department that has responsibility for the municipality’s employer policy.
“A City for Everyone” is the Municipality of Kristiansand’s initiative for equality, inclusion, and diversity.
The “A City for Everyone” concept was launched in 2018 as a dedicated awareness week aimed at highlighting the various grounds of discrimination set out in the Norwegian Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act. These grounds include gender, ethnicity, religion or belief, disability, and sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
This concept is both aimed towards the emploies and the population of the city.