Region:Asia Pacific
Current UN Women Plan Period Afghanisthan:2018-2022
World Bank Income Classification:Low Income
The World Bank classifies economies for analytical purposes into four income groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high income. For this purpose it uses gross national income (GNI) per capita data in U.S. dollars, converted from local currency using the World Bank Atlas method, which is applied to smooth exchange rate fluctuations.
Least Developed Country:Yes
Since 1971, the United Nations has recognized LDCs as a category of States that are deemed highly disadvantaged in their development process, for structural, historical and also geographical reasons. Three criteria are used: per capita income, human assets, and economic vulnerability.
Gender Inequality Index:0.575
GII is a composite metric of gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market. A low GII value indicates low inequality between women and men, and vice-versa.
Gender Development Index:0.723
GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: health, education, and command over economic resources.
Population:209,497,025
Source of population data: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2022). World Population Prospects: The 2022 Revision
Male:19,976,265 (9.5%)
Female:189,520,760 (90.5%)
outcome XM-DAC-41146-GEO_D_1.1
By 2025, all people in Georgia enjoy improved good governance, more open, resilient and accountable institutions, rule of law, equal access to justice, human rights, and increased representation and participation of women in decision making (UNSDCF Outcome1)
UN Women has made strong progress towards achieving this outcome in 2023. Policies and capacities for gender mainstreaming are developed and sustained at the national and local levels and more and better-quality data and analysis are available to promote and track the progress of gender equality and women’s empowerment in Georgia. The Government of Georgia adopted the 2023–2026 Public Finance Management Strategy and the 2023 PFM Action Plan on May 24. Both the PFM Strategy and Action Plan integrate key principles of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), contributing towards the institutionalization of GRB in Georgia and progress towards SDG indicator 5.c.1. These developments constitute an important policy shift in terms of mainstreaming gender in governance systems in Georgia, as the previous reform cycles on public finance management made no reference to gender equality goals and objectives. To achieve this, UN Women provided targeted technical support, including consultancy assistance to integrate GRB principles into the Government of Georgia's Public Finance Management Strategy and Action Plan. Aligned with the 2023-2024 PFM Action plan, UN Women plans to continue expanding the partnership with the Ministry of Finance to support the implementation of gender mainstreaming commitments under PFM reform Public Defender’s Office of Georgia has the capacity to ensure consistent and thorough monitoring of the institutionalization of gender equality and gender mainstreaming by the government at all levels; the PDO developed three thematic monitoring reports on gender equality and gender mainstreaming “ Assessment of effectiveness of gender equality institutional mechanism in Georgia ”, " Review of Georgia's Gender Mainstreaming Obligations and their Fulfilment Status, " and " Evaluation of Gender Equality Policies of Municipalities." In total 4 103 beneficiaries received legal consultations and/or information on GEWE issues in Kvemo Kartli and Shida Kartli Regions through UN Women and PDO collaboration in the period of 2020-2023. Along with financial support, UN Women provided guidance around methodological approaches, which were instrumental in enabling the Public Defender's Office of Georgia to develop thematic monitoring reports on gender equality and gender mainstreaming. The Civil Service Bureau (CSB) of Georgia has developed its Gender Equality Strategy and corresponding intra-institutional Gender Equality Action Plan with UN Women’s technical support. As a part of this plan, the entity adopted its internal sexual harassment complaints’ mechanism in 2022 and internal guidelines for the protection of victims/survivors of the Domestic Violence in 2023. The CEDAW committee in its concluding observations to Georgia State Party highlighted the gender mainstreaming progress of Civil Service Bureau as “aimed at establishing a gender-sensitive civil service.” (CEDAW/C/GEO/CO/6, paragraph 29, March 2023). This is a result of UN Women’s fruitful collaboration with the CSB that commenced in 2020 with Participatory Gender Audit of the entity and continued with Gender Impact Assessment (GIA) of the Law of Georgia on Public Service that was finalized in 2023. The GIA has identified not only the causes and consequences but also the primary barriers to women's leadership in public service. Furthermore, the GIA offers a set of legislative and policy recommendations aimed at promoting women's leadership and mainstreaming gender in public service that has implications also for other development partners engaged with CSB. The National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia (NALAG) has been championing gender equality work across all 64 municipalities of Georgia. In 2023, NALAG approved its second Gender Equality Action Plan for 2024–2025. The plan prioritizes comprehensive support for all 64 municipalities in crafting municipal-level gender equality action plans, implementing measures to combat municipal-level sexual harassment and improving gender data collection at the local level. The number of municipalities that have become parties to the European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life has reached 26 (40 per cent of all municipalities). All these results are stemming from the partnership agreement with NALAG, through which UN Women provided hands on technical support and offered ongoing guidance to achieve this result. The Georgian Government, development partners, civil society, and UN agencies can access more and better-quality data and analysis to promote and track the progress of gender equality and women’s empowerment. GEOSTAT with UN Women’s support, published 2023 edition of its annual publication “Women and Men in Georgia” in Georgian and in English. The publication summarizes main official sex-disaggregated statistics in the country and provides trend analysis in several domains such as health, education, social security, employment, etc. For the first time, the publication captures the main findings of Time Use Survey, including data on unpaid domestic and care work and SDG indicator 5.4.1. The publication is available on GEOSTAT’s website. The Georgian Government, development partners, civil society, and UN agencies can better assess the existing situation regarding gender equality and women’s empowerment and access a primary source for evidence-driven advocacy and programming using the third edition of Country Gender Equality Profile (CGEP), has been developed by UN Women in partnership with National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), academia and other relevant partners. Framed under international, regional and national commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE), the CGEP is an in-depth, national-level analysis of the status of women and men based on both statistical and qualitative data. During the reporting period, CGEP has been finalized in English. The CGEP is being translated into Georgian language and will be available publicly in the first quarter of 2024. Based on the progress made to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is largely still applicable. If, as expected, this strategy is successful, then the legislative initiatives, tools and mechanisms put in place by the CO would, within a few years, start having a real impact on the lives of women and girls in Georgia by making governance systems, state institutions and policy-making more gender sensitive and also enabling for greater participation of women in decision-making processes.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-GEO_D_2.1
By 2025, all people without discrimination benefit from a sustainable, inclusive and resilient economy in Georgia (UNSDCF Outcome 3)
UN Women is on track to achieve this outcome, having made strong progress in 2023. Women, particularly poor and socially excluded, used new skills, economic opportunities, and relevant information to gain employment and/or start/develop their businesses. Representatives of government, public institutions and private companies increased their capacities to develop and deliver legislation, policies, services and programs for women’s economic empowerment. Rural women who benefit from UN Women’s social mobilization gained business literacy and soft skills and accessed personalized career advice, technical assistance, and entrepreneurial opportunities so they can improve their livelihoods and entrepreneurial prospects. Cumulatively, in 2023 there are functioning 106 self-help groups (SHGs) of rural women with 1,052 members (77 SHGs with 723 members in Eastern, and 29 SHG with 329 members – in Western Georgia). This work has covered 23 municipalities (out of total 64 municipalities in Georgia) and 100 villages (48 different villages in 11 municipalities in Western Georgia and 52 villages in 12 municipalities in Eastern Georgia). The total number of women engaged in social mobilization in the end of 2023 has reached 1,117, with 1,052 being the SHG members. This result is achieved through tireless work of UN Women and its CSO partners that work on social mobilization of rural women daily. Rural women strengthened and exercised their voice and agency with UN Women and its CSO partners’ support. The local government promised to address and include in the next year’s budget 75 of 130 community needs (58%) brought forward by women who took part in eight Round Table meetings and two General Assemblies covering 30 villages. Women who have been socially mobilized by UN Women gathered these issues to bring forward through needs assessments of their communities, in which they interviewed 8105 persons, including 4624 women and 3481 men in 2023. So far, 58 new women took part in Round Table meetings. In total, 96 women entrepreneurs and 106 aspiring women entrepreneurs improved their business skills and develop business plans by graduating UN Women tailored training programmes “How to Develop a Business” and “How to Start a Business”. Women entrepreneurs gained skills related to product/service development, marketing and sales, taxation, finance, and other areas. Along with the training, participants developed business plans and benefited from individual advice. Twenty (20) agritourism enterprises got support from UN Women in creating full photo portfolios and profiles, which have been uploaded to Agrogate online portal, allowing them to have an online presence and traction. Additionally, 50 women entrepreneurs joined the E-commerce Association of Georgia, and 80 women became the part of Georgia Farmers’ Association community. Please access the list of these entrepreneurs at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hHTqO3g2pheDq5BJbsIY_UUdvX3FroL6NxbByYtwUnM/edit#gid=0 Women entrepreneurs advertised their goods and services through a new culinary travel guide A Culinary Journey with Women Entrepreneurs which allows readers to discover new agritourism facilities and promote the activities of women entrepreneurs. The guide developed combines new tourist routes with the stories of rural women employed in agritourism and the recipes of dishes they prepare. This collection describes the stories of 10 women and their wonderful agritourism facilities. UN Women and Tera Bank, one of the WEPs signatory companies, has prepared the guide. The link to the new culinary guide: https://georgia.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2023/03/culinary-tour-with-women-entrepreneurs As a direct result of an unprecedented private-public partnership, “500 Women in Tech”, 994 young women and girls increased their digital skills to access internships and/or employment opportunities in the ICT sector and more than 150 women have been employed with the skills acquired as part of this project (according to project monitoring). The relevance of this important initiative for the existing gender imbalance in technology has already been acknowledged at the high-level event “Joint Efforts to Empower Women in Technology”, which took place online on 7 March 2023 within the framework of the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. It is noteworthy that the initiative, which ended in May 2023, has been awarded the Future-Proof Education Initiative of the Year at the Emerging Europe Awards. WEPs signatories can access a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) manual and relevant certification programme for human resources management on how to apply DEI in the private sector for the first time in Georgia and more broadly in the ECA region. In the reporting period, UN Women finalized and published the manual on the WEPs web-page: https://www.weps.org/resource/deep-dive-diversity-equality-and-inclusion In the reporting period 24 new companies joined the WEPs from banking, consultancy, education and tech sectors, the total number of WEPS signatories reached 193 in December 2023. In 2023, more than 100 participants attended the annual WEPs conference (held for the sixth time) and discussed the spotlight topic of Gender Lens Investing. Representatives of international financial institutions, angel investors network, venture funds, and the private sector led thought-provoking discussions . Signatory companies of the Women's Empowerment Principles, including EY, GEC Consulting, Gazzele Finance, Soplidan.ge, Crystal MFO, showcased innovative projects fostering access to finance for women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses. Women farmers have new access to greenhouses through the Rural Development Agency’s (RDA) expanded support to women farmers in Chkhorotsku, Vani, and Chokhatauri municipalities. Cumulatively, inclusive of the first standalone Greenhouse Pilot Programme in Marneuli and Lagodekhi municipalities, women have access to 16 newly constructed greenhouses. All program beneficiaries participated in theoretical training on the agricultural aspects of the greenhouse. To achieve this, UN Women launched a pilot programme for women to establish greenhouses in 2022 in partnership with the Rural Development Agency. (please refer to the link https://www.rda.gov.ge/programs/women-pilot-program/27cb55d4-2788-4db5-8bde-92c03b842aef ). This new phase of the program implemented in the three new municipalities is fully funded by state resources. Under the first pilot programme in Marneuli and Lagodekhi municipalities, 37 applications were approved, and women received resources for starting up or further expanding their greenhouses. UN Women maintains ongoing consultations with the Rural Development Agency to advocate for potential changes in existing RDA programs, aiming to enhance their gender sensitivity and increase women’s participation rates. During the reporting period, 91 (70 women and 21 men) public servants from different line ministries and state agencies participated in trainings on gender equality and women’s rights with UN Women’s support in Georgia. UN Women's communication campaign "Women Who Don't Exist" has achieved incredible success, winning 2 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze award at AD Black Sea 2023. The campaign reached more than 700,000 people in social media. The campaign was broadcasted in more than 50 media sources. More information is available at: https://adblacksea.com/ Based on the progress made to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is largely still applicable. If, as expected, this strategy is successful, then the capacity development interventions and strategic partnerships put in place would, within a few years, start having a real impact on the lives of women and girls in Georgia by creating wealth of opportunities and enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-GEO_D_3.1
By 2025, all people in Georgia have equitable and inclusive access to quality, resilient and gender-sensitive services delivered in accordance with international human rights standards (UNSDCF Outcome 2)
UN Women has made strong progress towards partial achievement of this outcome in 2023, the progress is on track. The Government of Georgia further improved violence against women and domestic violence (EVAW/DV) legislation and policies to meet international standards. The Parliament of Georgia received a draft package of amendments to reform sexual violence crimes’ section in the Criminal Code of Georgia by introducing a consent-based definition of rape for their further discussion and initiation. UN Women in partnership with relevant state and non-state partners prepared draft package as part of its work to align legislation with the Istanbul Convention and other international standards. harmonizing Georgian legislation with the Istanbul Convention, Shelters/crisis centers use standards of operation that better ensure quality service provision The state-run services expanded; a new shelter in Tbilisi administered by the State Care Agency opened with 15 additional beds. The new shelter is adapted for persons with disabilities and will serve women victims of violence and their dependents. A local women’s NGO in ethnically diverse Samtskhe-Javakheti established a shelter for the survivors of violence to be later transferred to the state for sustainable funding. UN Women provided technical and financial support to achieve this result. The State Care Agency is actively applying rule on compensation for victims of VAW/DV, which were put into effect in 2022. Most cases of compensation are for femicide and issued to the family members of the VAW/DV victims. Since the enactment, 11 applications were submitted to the State Care Agency with 9 compensation requests already granted. As a result, a victim/survivor of violence is authorized to receive compensation from the state if the compensation for the damages is not paid by the abuser. The amount of the compensation is determined in accordance with the court's decision. The maximum amount of compensation is set at GEL 10,000. The provision of the necessary legislative amendments enabling victims to request the compensation also constitutes an obligation imposed by the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). The country now has updated data on VAW in Georgia to report and track the progress on the implementation of SDG 5— “to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”—and SDG 16—“to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels”. This is a result of the Georgia CO publishing the findings of the second National Survey on Violence against Women at the end of 2023. The survey is a result of the CO effectively exercising UN Women triple mandate by convening and coordinating the work of levant stakeholders around the survey, generating data that will feed into programmatic and normative work that will be technically supported by UN Women. The VAW survey revealed that every second woman in Georgia has experienced at least one form of violence in her lifetime, while every fourth ever-partnered woman in Georgia has experienced violence from her intimate partner. The study also revealed the positive changes in public opinion, with fewer women and men sharing VAW-supportive beliefs and norms compared to 2017. The study findings are expected to spark national debate about VAW and inform government policies to prevent and address all forms of VAW. Between May and September 2023, law enforcement used electronic surveillance more often in cases of domestic violence (in 68 cases during that 5-month period, as compared to just 44 cases from 2020-May 2023). This resulted from an improved risk assessment tool, an instrument for law enforcement to decide on the application of GPS electronic monitoring for perpetrators of violence. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) updated the risk assessment tool in May 2023, using recommendations from an assessment of the effectiveness of the domestic violence risk assessment tool carried out by UN Women and MIA. Overall, in 2023 a total of 405 professionals have enhanced their capacities to handle VAW/DV cases. This includes 18 judges, 21 judge’s assistants (JAs), 101 prosecutors and prosecutorial managers, 36 Witness’s and Victim’s Coordinators of the Prosecutors’ Office of Georgia, 127 investigators, 18 middle level managers of the MIA, 56 Investigators of the Special Investigation Service (SIS) and 28 lawyers. Members of the public (1463 participants; 1,090 - women and 373 – men) engaged in interactive role-play through InHerShoes trainings. These trainings use scenarios based on the real experiences of victims/survivors to generate empathy for the victims/survivors of GBV and promote behavioural change in women, girls, men and boys through awareness-raising. As part of the training, role-play is used to initiate discussions about VAW/DV and gender equality among participants, highlighting the need to fight against existing stereotypes and to support victims/survivors. Overall, UN Women rolled out the InHerShoes curriculum and, with local NGO partner Women’s Information Center, conducted 83 training. Through the Voices against Violence (VaV) module, 249 youth participants (150 girls and 99 boys) increased their awareness of VAW/DV during information sessions conducted by the Georgian Girl Scouts Association, “Dia”. Dia successfully delivered final round of VaV trainings, carrying out 9 trainings in the reporting period. The above-listed results became possible through UN Women’s work within the frameworks of two cost-share projects: “UN Joint Programme for Gender Equality in Georgia”, funded by the Government of Sweden, and “Ending Violence against Women and Girls in Georgia”, funded by the European Union. The shelter is Samtkhe-Javakheti region is funded with generous contribution from the Government of France. Based on the progress made to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is largely still applicable. If, as expected, this strategy is successful, then the harmonization of Georgia’s legislative and policy frameworks with international standards and the country’s commitments will start having real impact on the lives of women and girls in Georgia by outlawing discriminatory practices and improving women’s access to relevant protection and support services.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-GEO_D_4.1
By 2025, conflict affected communities enjoy human rights, enhanced human security and resilience (UNSDCF Outcome 4)
UN Women has made strong progress towards achieving this outcome in 2023, the office is on track to achieve this outcome. Women and girls are increasingly contributing to, and have influence in, building sustainable peace and resilience and benefit equally from the prevention of conflicts. Representatives of five SSIs - the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the State Security Service (SSS), the National Security Council (NSC) and the Georgian Intelligence Service (GIS), took steps to mainstream gender within their institutions. In the reporting year, around 500 SSI representatives engaged in gender mainstreaming and WPS related interventions to increase their knowledge and skills through access to international best practices, advice and gender expertise. Some have already launched initiatives related to gender equality and women’s empowerment in their institutions. To achieve this UN Women, in partnership with Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations (NCGM), NATO Liaison Office and its responsible partner DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF), undertook number of advocacy initiatives to generate high-level political support for women’s increased engagement in security sector decision-making. Additionally, over 350 representatives of the mentioned five SSIs participated in a public lecture on NATO’s policy on WPS agenda and work on advancing it within and outside the Alliance, as well as the importance of its implementation within the frames of cooperative security with NATO’s partners. This lecture, part of two visits of Ms. Irene Fellin, NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security to Georgia in March and June 2023, raised the WPS agenda in Georgia at the highest level and brought significant momentum for the project. Throughout the reporting year, around 120 IDP and conflict affected women and women’s CSOs engaged in meaningful and direct dialogue with Georgian participants of Geneva International Discussions (GID) and Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM). Women raised key concerns related to human security and access to services and infrastructure during information sharing meetings on GID and IPRM formats. UN Women organized the meetings, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, the Office of the State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality (SMR) and State Security Service of Georgia representatives. In the reporting year, two IPRM (on May 18, 2023, and on November 24, 2023) and one GID (December 18, 2023) information sharing meetings were held with the participation of women-led CSOs and grassroots IDP women and women from the Georgia’s conflict-affected villages. Around 90 IDP and conflict-affected women engaged in a direct dialogue with the leadership of UN system representatives in Georgia for the purpose of integrating their needs in UN programming. This occurred at the annual Open Day on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). The Open Day was also an opportunity to inform the GID Co-Chairs (from UN and OSCE) on the human security threats, which should be reflected in the GID meeting agendas. Open Days on WPS are led by UN Women for ten consecutive years, providing platform that enables displaced and conflict-affected women to have a direct dialogue with UN system and plan and implement measures tailored to their needs and priorities. Young Abkhaz and Georgian women engaged in direct dialogue with GID Co-Chairs during their pre-GID consultation meetings in Tbilisi and Sokhumi, where they provided youth-specific perspectives on peace and security issues as well as information on the existing challenges and problems faced by their communities. UN Women facilitated meetings allowed young women from conflict divides to have direct and meaningful exchange with the official Track 1 peace process representatives. Members of the informal, grassroots network of conflict- affected women are identifying, advocating for, and resolving critical issues facing their communities and similarly conflict-affected women. These issues relate to infrastructure, access to education and healthcare facilities, landownership and irrigation issues, public transport, internet connection, cultural and recreational facilities, and more. To achieve this, UN Women continued its partnership with the coalition of three women’s CSOs - IDP Women Association “Consent”, Women’s Information Center, and Women Fund "Sukhumi". During the reporting period, partners with the support of UN Women implemented activities contributing to the localization of the WPS agenda in 17 target municipalities (Mtskheta, Dusheti, Gori, Kareli, Kaspi, Khashuri, Gardabani, Tetritskaro, Kutaisi, Sachkhere, Tskaltubo, Zugdidi, Tsalenjikha, Senaki, Khoni, Mestia, Oni). The following results were obtained in the reporting period as planned in the previous reporting cycle: New members, including young women, joined the informal, grassroots network of active conflict-affected women. The network is currently comprised of 215 members, out of which 62 committed to work for the network on voluntary basis. Network members identified 92 of most problematic issues across all 17 target municipalities to target for an active phase of advocacy at the local municipal level. To identify these issues, network members conducted an online survey and focus group discussions among active local women; 120 women filled out the survey and 158 conflict-affected women attended focus group discussions. Through advocacy work, the network resolved 55 cases and 34 cases are in the process of being resolved because of their consistent engagement. To achieve this, IDP and conflict affected women met with representatives of local and central government (as well as the international development organizations, UN agencies, the Office of the Public Defender of Georgia) during advocacy work meetings in all 17 project target municipalities. Overall, 98 advocacy meeting were organized throughout the year. The advocacy work will be continued including through the meetings with municipalities, correspondence, or active cooperation on integrating the needs of IDP and conflict-affected women and communities in the local budgets and programs. Partner CSOs, and the women’s network have engaged in dialogue with private sector and various embassies as well to provide solutions to their local needs. Local municipalities (16 out of 17) elaborated and approved Gender Action Plans. Partner CSOs and grassroot women advocated for the gender action plan adoption and the number of involved municipalities. Overall, throughout the year, UN Women and its partners reached out to more than 1100 internally displaced and conflict affected persons, out of which 1035 were women and girls. Based on the progress made to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is largely still applicable. If, as expected, this strategy is successful, then the capacity development and gender mainstreaming interventions in security sector institutions as well as empowerment work aimed at IDP and conflict-affected women would, within a few years, start having a real impact in terms of comprehensive implementation of Women, Peace, and Security Agenda.Showing 1 - 4 of 4
Disclaimer and notes
The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
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