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Region:Asia Pacific Current UN Women Plan Period Afghanisthan:2018-2022
i-icon 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. i-icon 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. i-icon 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. i-icon 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.
i-icon 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%)
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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 2022. Georgia has in place a new framework policy to address gender equality and the empowerment of women. The State Concept on Gender Equality was adopted in December 2022 to replace the 2006 Concept. The new Concept is aligned with Georgia’s international and national commitments; namely, it prioritizes the achievement of substantive equality (as stipulated by Article 11 of the Constitution), gender mainstreaming in the policymaking process as well as in the education sector, combating violence against women and girls and strengthening the Women, Peace and Security agenda, among others. UN Women provided technical support in the development of the draft of the Concept that was initiated in the Parliament and fully met international standards. However, the final adopted version, reworked through the parliamentary process, uses a heteronormative definition of gender equality and fails to embrace sexual orientation and gender identity issues. Gender Impact Assessments have become an integral part of law-making in Georgia. The Parliament adopted amendments to the Organic Law of Georgia on Normative Acts that add a set of questions to the justification note to be submitted along with the legislative bill, assessing the impact of the bill on gender equality, including questions on the impact of the bill on women’s access to resources and decision-making. The legislative package was developed with UN Women’s technical support in partnership with the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament. Important groundwork has been laid for the institutionalization of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) in Georgia. UN Women supported the Ministry of Finance in conducting the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability’s (PEFA) Gender Responsive Public Finance Management (GRPFM) assessment. The GRPFM report was validated by the PEFA Secretariat, housed under the World Bank, at the end of 2022. The assessment evaluates the degree to which Georgia’s public finance management (PFM) system is gender responsive. The assessment results are expected to facilitate the measurement of progress and to inform a broader strategy for the Government of Georgia on improving the PFM system and institutionalizing GRB. This policy-level advocacy work around GRB is paired with capacity development efforts around GRB; UN Women’s responsible partner, the Academy of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, trained 363 civil servants (248 women, 115 men) representing the central and local governments on GRB in 2022. ? Representatives of local government are equipped with tools and knowledge to localize national gender equality policies at the municipal level. UN Women together with the National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia (NALAG) continued providing active support to the municipalities for the development and implementation of gender equality policies at the local level. As of December 2022, 44 municipalities have developed and approved local gender equality action plans aligned with the “Guidelines on the Development of Municipal Gender Equality Action Plans” by UN Women and NALAG. The above-listed results became possible through the UN Women cost-share project “Good Governance for Gender Equality in Georgia” (GG4GEG) supported by the Government of Norway. Positive steps are being taken in terms of the production and use of gender data. The National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat) in partnership with UN Women implemented Georgia’s first-ever Time Use Survey (GTUS). The GTUS generated internationally comparable time use data for Georgia and filled important gap in gender statistics, specifically in reporting on SDG indicator 5.4.1. The study was implemented within the framework of the GG4GEG project funded by the Government of Norway with co-funding from UN Women’s flagship programme Making Every Woman and Girl Count. On 9 December 2022, a public presentation of the GTUS findings was held, attended by around 80 representatives of the legislative and executive branches of the Government, development partners, civil society organizations and academia. Two reports were presented to the audience: a general statistical report and a thematic report on unpaid care work. Both reports as well as a separate issue brief on unpaid care work have been made available on UN Women Georgia’s website. Additionally, detailed statistical tables from the GTUS were published on Geostat’s website. The GTUS generated substantial public attention and was covered by 45 media outlets within the first four days of its launch. In 2022, in total, 29 new indicators were added to the Gender Data Portal, while all of the other (99) existing indicators were updated with 2021 data. In addition, Geostat with UN Women’s support developed the 2022 edition of its annual publication “Women and Men in Georgia” in Georgian and in English. For the first time, the publication captures the main findings of the Time Use Survey, including data on unpaid domestic and care work and SDG indicator 5.4.1. UN Women has further supported Geostat in improving its gender statistics products based on a user satisfaction assessment. 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)

Outcome was not achieved fully yet strong progress was made in 2022. 853 rural women increased their knowledge and skills to become economically empowered and join the formal labour sector or to start and grow their businesses and move up the value chain in Georgia. The targeted women have also actively engaged in advocacy initiatives with local governments; women from 30 target villages presented 124 proposals to local officials for consideration in the 2023 municipal budgets, 65 of which (52 per cent) were accepted for consideration in the next annual budget. A further 15 proposals (12 per cent) were provisionally accepted by the local authorities but require further discussion to identify whether they can be addressed within the municipal budget or via other sources. The advocacy efforts of women, if considered, will positively affect the safety of their communities (e.g. through street lighting, vaccination of street dogs, etc.) and WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) conditions in the villages (sewage, garbage bins, drainage channels, waste management, drinking water), as well as improved connectivity (transportation and roads) with municipal centres and, respectively, improved access to health care, markets, and educational and other opportunities. Importantly, resolving issues related to childcare (kindergartens) has the potential to considerably affect the unpaid care work burden of women in the rural communities and facilitate their economic empowerment.? The first tailor-made pilot state programme targeting rural women for setting up greenhouses was launched by the Rural Development Agency of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture with UN Women technical support. The programme targets women who are small-scale landowners and includes special advantages for the socially vulnerable in the selection process. In 2022, 38 applications were approved in the two target municipalities (Marneuli and Lagodekhi), and women have already received resources for starting up or further expanding their greenhouses. Produce collection, storage and access to market aspects are also taken into consideration in the programme design. UN Women has already started consultations with the Rural Development Agency and the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia on the potential scale-up of the programmes. Women are ready to be entrepreneurs. 165 women improved their business skills, developed their business plans and received tailored, individual coaching support in 2022 in Georgia with the support of UN Women. Total of 162 women have completed the training courses “How to Start a Business” (69 beneficiaries) and “How to Develop a Business” (96 beneficiaries). Further, tailored training in branding and marketing and standardization has been delivered to 96 women entrepreneurs operating in the agritourism value chain, and 13 women-owned enterprises were supported to develop an online presence. Moreover, 36 women entrepreneurs had an opportunity to scale up their businesses through financial support. Eight video interviews with the women engaged in agritourism were developed and disseminated via social media channels to highlight the role that women have in this sector.t 536 women and girls acquired a new profession in the tech field and graduated from the 500 Women in Tech programme, a public-private initiative aimed at improving women’s access to technologies and markets. Of the 536 women, 55 are Ukrainian women who fled the war in Ukraine and are currently living in Georgia. The 500 Women in Tech programme was launched by UN Women together with Business and Technology University and in partnership with more than 35 ICT companies. The programme provides skills-building and career pathways by offering training (through the following six courses: UI/UX 1; UI/UX 2; Front-End Development 1; Front-End Development 2; Digital Marketing; Software Product Testing), a career bootcamp, internships and employment opportunities. The employment results of the programme will be realized in 2023. As of December 2022, more than 170 private companies (about 70,000 employees) are signatories to the Women’s Empowerment Principles: Equality Means Business (WEPs), 66 of which joined in 2022. These companies have an increased understanding of the gender dimension of corporate sustainability and implement initiatives that advance women in the workplace, marketplace and community. A growing number of businesses adapted their policies, programmes and initiatives creating diverse working environments where women and girls can succeed. In addition, the companies were introduced to grass-roots women to provide women entrepreneurs and rural women with free trainings, internships, mentorship, employment and business opportunities in order to achieve more active participation by women in the economy and more inclusive economic growth in the Georgian context. UN Women initiated a working group of international financial institutions on “Promoting Gender Equality in Decision-Making Positions in the Financial Sector of Georgia” in 2022. The working group was set up with the following initial members: Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB). The objective of the working group is to ensure a coordinated approach to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the financial system of Georgia, specifically around achieving gender balance on the supervisory and management boards of the commercial banks. In July 2022, the National Bank of Georgia amended the Corporate Governance Code for Commercial Banks by changing the 20 per cent quota rule for supervisory boards to require that women comprise no less than 33 per cent of the supervisory board level no later than 1 June 2023, and no less than 40 per cent no later than 1 June 2025. tIn addition, for the first time, a recommendation note was added to the Code regarding the composition of the Board of Directors of banks (with women comprising no less than 33 per cent of the Board of Directors). The working group will advocate for more ambitious targets for women’s representation in the boards of the financial sector of Georgia and push for further institutional changes within commercial banks in terms of board diversity and inclusion by launching impactful initiatives. The above-listed results became possible through UN Women’s work within the frameworks of two cost-share projects: “Good Governance for Gender Equality in Georgia” (GG4GEG), funded by the Government of Norway, and “Women’s Economic Empowerment in the South Caucasus” (WEESC), funded by the Governments of Austria and Switzerland. 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 work at the level of policies and legislation, institutions and grassroots’ aimed at economic empowerment of women would within a few years start having a real impact on the lives of women and girls in Georgia by making entrepreneurship and employment policies as well as employers more gender sensitive and women better aware of their economic rights and opportunities.
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 2022. The Government of Georgia developed and adopted the National Action Plan on Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and Measures to be Implemented for the Protection of Victims (Survivors) for 2022–2024 (VAW/DV NAP) with UN Women’s technical support. The action plan aims to improve the implementation of the legal framework related to violence against women and domestic violence and to provide appropriate services and measures focusing prevention and awareness-raising of the public. The victims/survivors of violence against women and domestic violence have become entitled to state compensation in the amount of GEL 10,000 (USD 3,700). Georgia ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) in 2017. Article 30 of the Convention mandates the States Parties to take the necessary legislative or other measures to ensure that victims have the right to claim compensation from perpetrators for any of the offences established in accordance with this Convention. To meet this commitment, the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labour, Health and Social Affairs with UN Women support prepared the rule and procedure for issuing state compensation that was adopted in November 2022. The maximum amount of the compensation equals GEL 10,000 (USD 3,700), to be issued to the VAW/DV survivor and/or the children in the case of the victim’s death. The Parliament of Georgia has adopted a package of legislative amendments that aims at increasing access to state-run VAWG/DV shelters for the survivors of violence. This package of amendments was prepared with UN Women support. According to the amendments, no formal procedures are required to access the shelters, such as having a restraining/protective order, being recognized as a victim in a criminal case or being granted ‘victim’ status by an independent expert group. Victims/survivors seeking a shelter shall now apply directly to a crisis centre, where a group of specialists will immediately determine the specific services needed in each individual case. The software for the nationwide toll-free 24/7 VAW/DV hotline (116 006) has been updated to improve the quality of and access to the service, as well as data entry and processing for hotline operators. As a result of the update, the potential beneficiaries can receive services online or participate in video calls if preferred. Operators are now able to redirect each call to the relevant services immediately without terminating the call. In addition, responses can now be generated via SMS or email. The system also includes a monitoring module that records feedback on service quality. In addition, the system is enabled to generate various types of reports to be used for data collection, analysis or monitoring. Institutionalized training curricula for judges, prosecutors and lawyers was improved to increase the capacities of service providers and meet the needs of VAWG/DV victims/survivors with UN Women’s contribution. Altogether 1081 professionals benefitted from UN Women capacity development interventions under this outcome; A total of 805 professionals, including 91 judges and judicial assistants (JAs), 545 prosecutors, 15 high-level managers and 98 investigators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 42 investigators of the Special Investigation Service (SIS) and 14 lawyers, underwent the training programmes and increased their knowledge, capacity and skills around VAWF/DV. In addition to that, a total of 192 professionals, including 100 police officers, 30 lawyers of the Legal Aid Service (LAS) and 62 social workers of the State Care Agency were trained to strengthen their capacity to ensure an efficient response to VAWG/DV cases and hate crimes against the LGBTIQ+ community and to provide quality services to DV and sexual violence victims/survivors from the LGBTIQ+ community. In order to increase understanding of VAW/DV and sensitivity towards the issues, UN Women organized trainings for the members of the Association of Mediators of Georgia, reaching out to 84 participants (57 women and 27 men). UN Women deepened its strategic partnership with the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics around gender-sensitive and ethical reporting on women’s rights and LGBTIQ-related issues. Together with the Charter, UN Women conducted 20 trainings reaching 201 media representatives (160 women and 41 men). Along with the trainings, the Charter has committed to conducting awareness-raising and advocacy meetings with media organizations and individual journalists to support the process of gender-sensitive and ethical reporting based on the guidelines and standards developed with UN Women technical support. 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. 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 2022. Georgia adopted its fourth stand-alone National Action Plan for Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security (NAP 1325) for the period of 2022–2024 (Ordinance No. 510 of the Government of Georgia, October 2022). The NAP 1325 was developed with UN Women technical support in close partnership with the Inter-Agency Commission on Gender Equality, Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and through a wide and participatory drafting process. The process entailed consultations and active engagement of government agencies, relevant municipalities, women’s CSOs and around 70 grass-roots internally displaced and conflict-affected women and youth, in total engaging 110 individuals (95 per cent of whom were women) in the process to ensure inclusive and participatory development of the impact-driven NAP 1325. The NAP 1325 outlines the objectives and activities that Georgia takes, both on a domestic and international level, to secure the human rights of women and girls in post-conflict settings; prevent armed conflict and violence, including against women and girls, as well as encourage peace efforts to meet with the needs and rights of IDP and conflict-affected women and girls; and ensure the meaningful participation of women and youth in peace and security processes. The NAP 1325 is accompanied by a budget and a monitoring and evaluation framework. In addition, the document has a strong youth focus and mainstreams Youth, Peace and Security agenda priorities to respond to the needs of conflict-affected youth, especially young women, and their right to participate in decision-making processes related to peace and security. Throughout the year, UN Women lobbied the State Ministry for Reconciliation and Civic Equality (SMR) and the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure (MRDI) to include in the fourth NAP 1325 the activities related to the regular exchange on the needs and priorities of the IDP and conflict-affected women living in the villages adjacent to the Administrative Boundary Lines (ABL). As a direct result, the new NAP 1325 foresees regular meetings between the Interim Governmental Commission on Dividing Lines led by the SMR and MRDI for the purpose of responding to the needs of the population, particularly women, affected by conflicts in the villages near the ABLs (NAP 1325 Activity 1.3.3 and Activity 1.3.4). In partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, UN Women has continued offering a dialogue platform to women’s CSOs working on Women, Peace and Security issues and the Georgian participants of the Geneva International Discussions (GID). These information-sharing meetings aim at providing feedback from the most recent rounds of the GID and entry points for mainstreaming the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the process. The meetings are the sole platform for information-sharing about the GID process and its outcomes with civil society; these meetings are part of the fourth NAP 1325 and are led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality with the technical support of UN Women. To support the localization of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, UN Women continued its partnership with the coalition of three women’s CSOs: the IDP Women’s Association “Consent”, the Women’s Information Center and the Women Fund “Sukhumi”. The partners contributed 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). In total in 2022, through the capacity development and advocacy activities, more than 1,918 IDP and conflict-affected people (1,813 women and 105 men) were reached by the CSO partners. During the reporting period, UN Women has carried out multiple interventions to enhance gender mainstreaming in the security sector reform of Georgia. In partnership with DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, professional development sessions took place for staff working on gender across the security sector institutions (SSIs), namely the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the State Security Service (SSS) and the Office of the National Security Council (NSC), engaging 64 employees altogether. To promote the role and contribution of women in the Georgian Defence Forces (GDF) and the need for their career advancement, UN Women developed and launched the publication “Women in Service to Georgia” (available at https://georgia.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2022/11/women-in-service-to-georgia). About 70 high-level officials attended the launch event from the Ministry of Defence and the GDF (including 30 senior and mid-ranking military officers) and from other security sector institutions. During the launch event, Llani (LJ) Kennealy, Policy Specialist and Strategic Military Advisor at UN Women, and Jane Townsley, international expert for DCAF, discussed the role of women’s networks in the security sector in supporting women’s leadership and career advancement and underlined the importance of women’s networks and mentorship programmes aimed at building a cadre of future women leaders in the defence sector. The above-listed results became possible through UN Women’s work within the framework of the cost-share project “Accelerating Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Georgia”, funded by the UK Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). 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 support to developing and implementing standalone policies on women, peace and security on one hand and the mainstreaming of women, peace and security agenda in security sector reform on the other will yield improved results for women and girls in Georgia in general and IDP and conflict affected women in particular.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-GEO_O_1

Assuring an accountable organization through principled performance

In the reporting period, the Gender Theme Group (GTG) (chaired by UN Women) continued its work as planned; three regular GTG meetings took place, culminating in the high-level annual National Gender Equality Conference on 15 December 2022. UN Women continued to take active part in the work of all UNSDCF results groups, providing reporting inputs to UNINFO as relevant. In the reporting period, the UN Women Georgia team received funding for the third and final phase of the UN Joint Programme for Gender Equality (UNJP4GE), implemented from July 2022 until December 2026. UN Women is serving as the Convening Agency of this Joint Programme.
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References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
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