Capacities strengthened for gender policy making in the local governments

NALAG's representatives discussing the role of municipalities in combating violence against women and girls. Photo: NALAG

UN Women is partnering with the National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia (NALAG) and supports coordinated action to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment issues into local planning processes and develop gender mainstreaming capacity of all 64 municipalities across Georgia.

On September 28-29, 2020, NALAG in partnership with UN Women organized a two-day training for NALAG staff and board members. The training aimed at strengthening NALAG’s capacity on prevention and response to violence against women and domestic violence and on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The training further aimed at discussing strategies for strengthening local governments’ role in prevention and responses to violence against women and localization of international and national commitments of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

"The training allowed us to analyze the main challenges of combating violence against women and domestic violence and helped us generate a plethora of ideas on how NALAG can support local governments in this area more effectively,” - noted Natia Ghvinashvili, Deputy Executive Director of NALAG. Strengthening the role of local governments in the response to domestic violence and delivering to the needs of women affecting by conflict more effectively are among the top priorities identified by NALAG Strategy on Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming. The Strategy is currently in the making is expected to be adopted by the end of 2020.

UN Women plans to further accelerate work on strengthening local-level gender equality initiatives in line with Georgia’s international and national commitments on women’s empowerment and the recommendations of the Public Defender’s Office issued under its “Assessment of Gender Policy of Local Self-Government Bodies”. UN Women’s cooperation with NALAG is taking place within the framework of the project “Good Governance for Gender Equality in Georgia”, supported by the Government of Norway.