Promoting Gender Equality and Developing Gender-Sensitive Municipal Services

Theme

Women’s participation in decision-making processes and strengthening institutional mechanisms for gender equality.

Description

To support women, Khoni Municipality has been implementing various social programs for years, including rental assistance for victims of violence, financial aid for single parents and large families. With local government support, Khoni operates a Community Education Center offering free short-term personal and professional development courses to interested citizens.

Implementing Organization

Khoni Municipality

Challenge

Khoni Municipality shows low female participation both in socio-economic aspects and in terms of involvement in decision-making processes. Women rarely show initiative in governance processes and almost never express their opinions.

These circumstances are caused by low public awareness, stereotypes, and other factors. The local government aims to reduce, within its capabilities, the barriers that lead to women’s low participation in public activities, to prevent the loss of women’s potential and to voice their needs. Therefore, it is important to implement initiatives that encourage women’s participation to ensure gender-balanced decision-making.

Often, women either lack information about municipal activities, or if they have information, they hesitate to get involved, or don’t know how to participate. For example, until 2023, women’s participation in village meetings and general settlement meetings within the “Village Support Program” in Khoni Municipality was minimal. Consequently, decisions made and projects implemented in villages primarily reflected men’s needs, with women’s voices barely being heard. The local government realized the need to increase information dissemination and implement specific measures to explain the essence and purpose of the “Village Support Program” to women in detail, and emphasize the importance of their involvement in this process.

Solution

Additionally, the municipality has established a Gender Equality Council in the City Council, whose action plan largely focuses on addressing women’s needs. The City Hall’s administrative service employs a specialist responsible for gender issues who successfully implements various administrative, informational, and educational activities. Khoni also has a dedicated budget for responding to gender-sensitive issues (Code: 01 01 05)

The 2024 program gender budget description included funding for activities that would encourage women’s participation in decision-making processes.

Khoni Municipality administration notified residents about the start of the “Village Support Program” implementation through collective SMS messages. The public institution urged citizens that village/settlement meetings were beginning and women’s participation was particularly important. They explained that additional financial resources from the local gender budget would be allocated to the village with the highest women’s attendance at the settlement/village meeting.

The municipality’s SMS information campaign and incentive measure yielded positive results. In 2024, many women attended the village/settlement meetings under the Village Support Program. Many noted that they received the SMS notification and considered it necessary to attend the meeting, express their opinions, and support various projects.

Based on the municipality’s statistical analysis of meeting attendance, the village of Gocha-Jikhaishi emerged as the winner, with the highest percentage of women attending the settlement meeting.

Through additional consultations with the population (where women also represented the majority), it was decided that the local gender budget would fund village addressing (numbering residential houses and other infrastructure), which is clearly a gender-sensitive project and will make it easier for visitors, taxis, rescue, and emergency vehicles to find necessary addresses in the future. The project will also enhance the village’s appearance. Most importantly, this project was implemented thanks to women’s involvement, which should serve as motivation for women living in other villages!