The MCA – Georgia held the 9th and final meeting on “Role of Gender Equality for Development of Human Capital”.

The meeting was attended by the members of the Gender Equality Council: Guguli Magradze and Dimitri Tskitishvili, US Embassy representative Jeffrey Reneau and the MCA – Georgia Director, Jenner Edelman.

The parties discussed the role of gender equality in human capital development, economic empowerment of women and MCA 2nd compact achievements, goals and experience in gender equality and civic engagement terms.

G. Magradze introduced the outcomes of the Thematic Inquiry Group under the aegis of GEC on “Accessibility to vocational education for economic empowerment of women”.

“Eradication of poverty lies through intensive engagement of women in economy. Economic empowerment of women plays the key role in addressing violence and political participation of women. Women, for economic empowerment, need to have the opportunity of employment to master the professions needed at the labor market, which can be achieved through vocational education”.

The thematic inquiry group heard the positions of the organizations and citizens and on the basis of the recommendations of the state agencies, NGOs and business organizations, revealed the barriers girls and women encounter in obtaining the profession: “The Parliament develops the recommendations and will on system-basis monitor enforcement of these recommendations to improve accessibility to vocational education and facilitate economic empowerment of women”.

D. Tskitishvili spoke about the process of adoption of the law on Sexual Harassment in the Parliament.

He spoke about the impediments in this process. "Sexual Harassment was under taboo for a long time in the society but today it is time when it is loudly discussed and the society has acknowledged that gender equality requires respective legal regulations for elimination of sexual abuse”.

According to MCA – Georgia CEO, Magda Magradze emphasized challenges in education system in gender equality term. “Today, together with Members of Parliament we discuss the challenges in gender and social equality terms in Georgia, and especially in education system. We discussed the recommendations of the international and local experts and the steps to be made for Georgia to achieve better equality in education system”, - she noted.

According to J. Reno, equal engagement of girls and women in education system is important for economic development of the country.