Dear EPIC committee members,

On behalf of the Ministry of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, it is my pleasure to submit the Georgia’s application to join the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC). 

Please, kindly note that out of compliance criteria, Georgia already meets four.  Namely:

• Georgia has ratified ILO Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100);
• Georgia has ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, 1976; 
• Georgian National Statistics office collects sex-disaggregated data on monthly wages since 2001 however, hourly wage data has been collected since 2017 through the improved Labour Force Survey;
• Georgia offers in-kind support as contributions to key EPIC outputs. 

In addition to the above, in the upcoming three years, the Government of Georgia will continuously work on complying with other EPIC criteria, including:

• adherence to the recommendation of the 2013 OECD Council on Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship and the 2015 recommendation of the OECD Council on Gender Equality in Public Life; 
• encouragement of policies or practices for pay transparency;
• enhancing further measures to ensure that equal pay laws and policies are in place and working towards adopting legislation in line with ILO Convention No. 100.

It would be our pleasure to explore hosting the signing ceremony in September, 2020 with Dr. Durrer, of course considering the COVID-19 international travel recommendations of both the Government of Switzerland and the Government of Georgia.  

Sincerely,

Tamila Barkalaia

Deputy Minister

144 Tsereteli ave, Tbilisi, Georgia, 0159

+995 599 281 281