On May 27, the guests from Austria - 18 representatives of the trade union visited the Fund “Sukhumi”. They familiarized with basic directions of the organization, which has 20 years of experience. Guests spoke about their activities, current projects and expressed the desire for future cooperation.

The Fund "Sukhumi" held a roundtable meeting in Zestaponi Municipality on the topic of “the implementation of gender approaches in local politics (Gender Mainstreaming)”. Together with the representatives of the local municipality and civil groups, the representatives of the Kharagauli and Baghdati Municipalities also attended the meeting.

The principles of the manual for gender strategies at the local level, developed by the Fund "Sukhumi" and four main areas - what issues should be reflected in local political strategy and action plans, and who is the manual for - have been introduced during the meeting.

Interesting discussions were held during the roundtable meeting on gender policy and practice, experiences and challenges in municipalities. Participants talked about the needs identified in terms of gender education of personnel, gender budgeting, and needs assessment methodology and stressed the necessity of cooperation with qualified non-governmental sector. The outlines of the future work have been identified. Particular recommendations have been discussed, which, in the opinion of the participants, would necessarily affect the condition of women, youth and other groups.

The meeting was held as part of the project “Learning from the experience of Visegrad Four to advocate for equal, inclusive and democratic local governance”.

The project is implemented with the support  of the Visegrad Fund

Inclusion of local government in the implementation of law - combating violence, victims’  assistance and prevention. Focus groups and in-depth interviews in Tskaltubo, Khoni, and Kutaisi were held as part of monitoring Georgian Law on: “Elimination of Domestic Violence / Violence against Women, Protection and Assistance to the victims". The positions of Gender Equality Councils of municipalities were revealed.

In order to receive detailed information, an in-depth interview was held with the gender adviser of the Department for connection with Local Governments of the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure. The policy of the Ministry in this direction was defined.

On May 11, a conference on “the Experience of Visegrad Four and Georgia to Advocate for Equal, Inclusive and Democratic Local Governance” was held in Tbilisi. Representatives of various embassies, international and local NGOs, and government authorities participated in the conference, together with the representatives from 15 municipalities of Western Georgia. Experts from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Georgia made 8 presentations on public participation in decision-making process, gender mainstreaming, participatory budgeting and other topical issues.

The participants asked the experts questions regarding the topical issues and received answers that were based on the experience of 5 countries.

The project is implemented with the support  of the Visegrad Fund