Georgian Parliament Takes Part in Training Marathon to Ensure Gender Equality

Press release.

TBILISI. 14 July 2017 – The leading international expert in gender and human rights held bespoke sessions with the Parliament of Georgia and representatives of civil society to discuss gender budgeting practices in Georgia and worldwide, and analyse the policy and law-making process from a gender equality perspective.

The six-day exercise was instantiated by the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia, with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Government of Sweden, National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the USAID Georgia Good Governance Initiative (GGI). 

According to MP Nino Goguadze, Member of the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia: “As time passes, the idea of gender equality is becoming easily comprehensible to society, which is already one step ahead of the past. What we need to achieve now is mainstreaming gender equality to all national policies. The Gender Equality Council has already kicked off the implementation of gender analysis of Georgian legislation, which is an important step towards ensuring the equal and rational distribution of state resources. However, gender mainstreaming is a continuous process and cannot be ceased after achieving a specific target. Our goal is to make it an essential part of national policies.” 

Throughout the six-day long working sessions, Sheila Quinn, a renowned expert of gender budgeting and gender impact analysis commissioned by GGI, held working meetings and training with the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia, Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) and representatives of the civil society and academia to discuss the Gender Impact Analysis (GIA) method – a methodology used to examine how specific policies and laws may affect both male and female population, and how these policies could be used to advance the gender equality agenda of the country. Gender budgeting sessions with the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) aimed to advance the gender budgeting experience in Georgia and discuss ways for constructing budgets in line with the principles of equality. 

Sheila Quinn also held a consultation with the Co-Chair of the recently established Interagency Commission of Gender Equality, Domestic Violence and Violence against Women to discuss future work of the Commission and how the Gender Impact Analysis (GIA) and gender budgeting can be applied by the government. 

The Gender Equality Council of the Parliament has pledged to pilot the Gender Impact Analysis (GIA) methodology on two pieces of legislation and report back to the public on the outcome in autumn 2017.