UN Women and Parliamentary Gender Equality Council strengthen advocacy for women
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Achieving progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment across Georgia is difficult without the involvement of the municipalities, so UN Women and the Parliamentary Gender Equality Council are taking active steps to jointly advocate for these issues with the local governments.
On 16 August 2021, Nino Tsilosani, Chair of the Parliamentary Gender Equality Council, and Tamar Sabedashvili, Acting UN Women Country Representative in Georgia, visited Telavi Municipality to discuss future cooperation with local government officials. Meetings were held with Irakli Shioshvili, the State Representative in Kakheti Region; Shota Nareklishvili, the Mayor of Telavi Municipality; and Archil Tkhlashidze, the Chairman of Telavi City Council.
It should be noted that the Crisis Centre for Victims of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence has been operating in Telavi since 2019. It was established through the Women’s Consultation Center “Sakhli” with the support of UN Women and the Government of Sweden.
The main topic of the meetings with the representatives of the local governments was the issues related to the functioning of the Telavi Crisis Centre. At the same time, the importance of providing sustainable services to victims of violence at the municipal level was also underlined.
“Transferring gender mainstreaming to the municipal level is an important mission,” remarked Ms. Tsilosani. “I hope that the work started by UN Women - the establishment of crisis centres in the regions - will soon become part of the policy of the municipalities.”
Ms. Sabedashvili added: “Decentralization of the services for victims of violence against women and especially crisis centres at the municipal level, through the cooperation of the non-governmental sector and local authorities, guarantees the sustainability of these services.”
UN Women, in cooperation with the Parliamentary Gender Equality Council and the National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia, will continue to work actively with Telavi Municipality to successfully implement the pilot model of the Crisis Centre for Victims of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, which will be run by the local self-government.
The above-mentioned effort is part of the UN Joint Programme for Gender Equality, which is implemented with the financial support of the Government of Sweden.