Project focuses on female empowerment in Georgia

The Women’s Information Centre (WIC), a local non-profit organisation, has presented the results of its two-year project that focused on female empowerment and importance of a women’s role in Georgia.

The project, titled as Women as Agents for Change and Empowerment, was supported and financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 

Today’s presentation was attended by Government officials, Members of Georgia’s Parliament, the United States (US) Ambassador to Georgia, several deputy ministers, the chairperson of the Central Election Commission (CEC), media representatives and the people who were directly involved in the project.

The project launched in 2014 and covered the following areas: 

• Women’s political and economic empowerment; 
• Women’s involvement in conflict settlement and peace making process. 

WIC head Elene Rusetskaia told Agenda.ge the project achieved its major goal of raising awareness of the importance of a woman’s role in society. She said women, particularly in rural areas who have never been involved in public activities, had begun to speak out about their problems and had worked out ways to solve their own and community-related difficulties. 

The project’s second goal – to increase the number of women in Georgia’s Parliament – had not been met yet however more women were becoming interested in politics, which was positive. Rusetskaia added the WIC would continue to raise awareness of the importance of gender equality in the legislative body, in which females currently occupy 17 out of the 150-seat Parliament. 

Majority Member of Parliament (MP) Manana Kobakhidze said gender equality in Parliament had not been reached and she hoped other MPs would support an increase of women within the legislative body.

US Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly told Agenda.ge that women’s active involvement in all aspects of Georgian life would be positive and encourage a healthy democracy. 

At the final part of today’s presentation, WIC awarded those who had been active participants of the project, local representations, media and others for their continual support towards gender equality.