GeoStat Celebrates 100 Years & 20 Years of Gender-Awareness
On Thursday, July 25, the regional conference Gender Statistics: Challenges and Opportunities to Report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was hosted by the National Statistics Office of Georgia (GeoStat) and UN Women, with the support of the UN Women’s Global Flagship Gender Data Initiative and the governments of Switzerland and Austria. The conference, held at the Radisson Blu Iveria hotel in Tbilisi, was designed to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of GeoStat, and their 20-year anniversary of collecting gender-related statistics.
The regional conference was attended by several high-level Georgian and international officials, including Gogita Todradze, GeoStat’s Executive Director, Tamar Chugoshvili, Vice Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Papa Seck, Chief Statistician for UN Women, and the heads of national statistics offices from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and, of course, Georgia. Also in attendance were representatives from local and international non-governmental organizations and academic institutions.
In his opening remarks, Todradze noted that there are several events planned for GeoStat’s 100th anniversary, “including a regional conference hosting the heads of statistics offices from up to 10 countries worldwide.” He added, “I would like to congratulate every statistician on this milestone and thank them for their fruitful cooperation. At the same time, I would like to thank UN Women for enabling us to have such a large-scale anniversary to commemorate 100 years of statistics.”
Within the framework of the conference, participants discussed successful steps towards fulfilling the SDGs, mainstreaming gender into the statistical business production process, and dissemination and communication of gender statistics. At the end of the first day of the conference, the presented heads of the national statistics offices signed a joint statement declaring the parties’ interest to deepen cooperation and to support the continued development of their statistics systems.
Also on Thursday, Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze congratulated GeoStat on their anniversary, calling it “an institution that withstood historic turbulences and staffed with high-caliber professionals, who are great patriots and devotees of their homeland.” He added, “I welcome the progress that we have witnessed at GeoStat in recent years. I know the attitude of our European and international partners towards the reforms that have been carried out at the institution. I am grateful to every person who was engaged in this process. The 21st century is the era of information. Hence, your office has even greater significance now. You serve as a source of information for all other institutions that are obliged to develop policies on the grounds of your data to advance our country and overcome the current challenges.”
On Friday, July 26, the conference continued with thematic discussions on gender pay and participations gaps, and on asset ownership and entrepreneurship. They also emphasized the value of having gender-related statistics, including gender disaggregated data on time use and the challenges revealed as a result of studies on violence against women and girls.
Parallel to the conference, a three-day hackathon on gender data visualization was held to raise awareness of the value and importance of good statistical data among Georgian youth. Using gender-related statistics that GeoStat has collected over the past 20 years, participants needed to analyze the data, apply it to relevant topics or policy questions, and demonstrate how they might use the data to develop innovative products. Central themes included unpaid care work, the gender wage gap and asset ownership. The top teams shared their work with the attendees of the regional conference on Gender Statistics.
By Samantha Guthrie
Image source: National Statistics Office of Georgia