UN Women works to build awareness of the gender-aware economy

Information-sharing among interested groups can help to promote women’s economic empowerment and build a gender-aware economy in Georgia: where women rights defenders, media outlets and civil society play a crucial role in this process. Crucially, UN Women facilitates such knowledge-sharing, as highlighted by the “Gender and Economy” training held between 5-9 July, which was attended by around 25 participants.

A range of topics was covered during the sessions, including gender and macroeconomics; unpaid work and employment; the gender pay gap and gender inequality in the labor market in Georgia; models to implement the Equal Pay Review and Reporting (EPRR) methodology; and the creation of an inclusive social protection system. The participants moreover discussed the Regulatory Impact Assessment on ILO C189 – the Domestic Workers’ Convention and ILO C183 – the Maternity Protection Convention.

“It was very interesting to discuss and analyse various projects and reports from a gender perspective,” said Nino Beridze, a journalist from Kvemo Kartli Media. “Thanks to this training, I have deepened my knowledge of the gender-aware economy and analyses methods. I also received comprehensive information about the role of gender in the economy and what needs to be done to build a strong economy that would encourage equal, full-scale participation from both men and women. This knowledge will be very useful in my job as a journalist.”

“Mainstream economic knowledge completely lacks a feminist perspective,” stated Ida Bakhturidze, Program Coordinator of Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF) Georgia office. “Rights defenders and people working on equality policies do not possess professional competence in economic issues. That is why meetings that help us gain more knowledge, improve our skills and understand the gender-aware economy are very important.”

The training was conducted within the scope of the UN Women regional “Women’s Economic Empowerment in the South Caucasus” project, which is being implemented with financial backing from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC).