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Women's Empowerment Principles - Promising Practices From Georgia
Women's Empowerment Principles - Promising Practices From Georgia
EMPOWERMENT
PRINCIPLES
PROMISING PRACTICES FROM 2018
GEORGIA
WOMEN’S
EMPOWERMENT
PRINCIPLES
NOTE
This booklet was developed by the Civil Development Agency (CiDA) under the
project “A Joint Action for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Georgia” imple-
mented by UN Women and funded by the Government of Norway.
The views expressed in this report are solely those of the company members of the
Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) working group “Women’s Empowerment
in Business Sector” in Georgia and do not necessarily represent the official position
of UN Women or the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
4
This booklet provides a brief description of how the Women’s
WOMEN’S
EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment Principles: Equality Means Business (WEPs) are
implemented by the private sector in Georgia. The goal of the
booklet is to capture some promising initiatives and inspire more
companies to join the WEPs movement.
PRINCIPLES
1
Developed by UN Women and the UN Global Compact in 2010,
) Establish high-level corporate
the WEPs offer seven steps to guide businesses on how to em- leadership for gender equality
power women in the workplace, marketplace and community.
The WEPs emphasize the business case for corporate action to
promote gender equality and women’s empowerment and sup- 2 ) Treat all women and men fairly
at work
3
port companies to integrate a gender lens throughout their busi-
ness operations. More than 2,000 chief executive officers around ) Ensure the health, safety and
the world have signed the WEPs CEO Statement of Support so well-being of all women and men
workers
far.
Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UN Wom-
en launched the project “A Joint Action for Women’s Economic 4 ) Promote education, training
and professional development for
women
Empowerment in Georgia” in December 2017. The project aims
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with the Civil Development Agency (CiDA), which also serves
as the Secretariat of the Global Compact Network in Georgia. ) Measure and publicly report
CiDA’s support includes, among others, the assessment of com- on progress to achieve gender
equality
panies’ policies and operations from a gender perspective; assis-
tance in the development of action plans for WEPs implementa-
tion; and training and technical support in mainstreaming gender
considerations in business practices. 5
WHY DO
COMPANIES
EMPOWER
WOMEN?
6
“Women Economic Empowerment is one of Crystal’s top pri-
orities. We employ 1,000+ people and serve more than 95, 000
customers around Georgia (in both cases majority of which are
women – staff members: 60.9%, Customers: 52.6 %). We believe
we must be a fair representation of the society we serve: it’s not
only the right thing to do, it’s the only way Crystal can drive last-
ing progress, and build a more balanced and sustainable world.“
7
PROMISING PRACTICES
Women’s engagement at Adjara Group In 2018, Adjara Group conducted awareness-raising trainings on
combating violence against women in the communities living in
Employees Kazbegi Municipality, where the company initiated a project enti-
tled “The employment of women survivors of domestic violence”.
Management Consequently, three women have already been successfully em-
ployed within Adjara Group as a result of this project.
Board of Directors Linked to the various measures implemented under the WEPs
Action Plan, the number of female employees at Adjara Group
has increased by 12 per cent. Currently, the Board of Directors
Women Men has seven men and five women, while the company’s management
positions are occupied by 28 men and 33 women. Altogether, the
company has 1,045 male and 855 female employees.
10
SOCAR Georgia Petroleum joined the WEPs in October 2018. A
month later came the launch of the company’s new CSR strategy
with five focus areas, one being women’s empowerment and gen-
der equality. As one of the company’s first WEPs activities, more
than 35 department heads and managers were trained on gender
equality and diversity, including on the prevention of sexual ha-
rassment in the workplace. Of the training attendees, 73 per cent
were men.
As part of the WEPs Action Plan, SOCAR Georgia Petroleum has
pledged to take steps to promote all seven principles. The future
plans include taking measures to eradicate gender stereotypes,
introducing work-life balance programmes to support employees
with children and engaging male employees in campaigns on gen-
der equality. In their information campaigns, the company will
build on their previous experiences in tackling gender norms. For
example, to break the commonly held stereotype that women are
poor drivers, the company distributed specialized bumper stick-
ers at SOCAR stations, and to combat stereotypes about so-called
*1
The AccorHotels Group comprises more than 20 brands, from budget to luxury.
Mercure Tbilisi Old Town was the first four-star hotel from the AccorHotels Group
and opened in 2015. In 2017, ibis Styles Tbilisi Center, a three-star hotel, also
14 opened through the AccorHotels Group. Both hotels are managed by one (cluster)
management team.
15
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The PR company GEPRA is among the first companies that, after
signing onto the WEPs in 2016, developed and implemented a
WEPs Action Plan. Since 2016, the company has had a training
and mentoring system to promote women’s education and pro-
fessional development. The company pays great attention to sex-
ual harassment in the workplace. In 2018, all employees of the Men and women at managerial
company completed the electronic training course “Prevention of positions at GEPRA
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace”, *2 and the company has
adopted an internal sexual harassment complaint mechanism.
GEPRA is continually classifying the suppliers according to their
sex and analysing the data to seek to improve gender balance in
their supplier base.
Women Men
*2
The electronic course “Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace” in
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the Georgian language was created by UN Women and the Office of the Public
Defender of Georgia.
applications. In addition, the women involved in the programme
will go through a Training of Trainers (ToT) to be able to train the
students of the next cohort. This activity will be implemented not
only in Tbilisi but also in the regions of Georgia.
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WOMEN’S
EMPOWERMENT
PRINCIPLES