Integrating Gender Equality into Standards, Testing Procedures and Occupational Safety in Georgia’s Construction Materials Sector

Commissioned by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), ACT Global carried out a research assignment on integrating gender equality into standards, testing procedures and occupational safety regulations in Georgia’s construction materials manufacturing sector – a high-risk, male-dominated sector used as a demonstration case for gender-responsive approaches within Georgia’s Quality Infrastructure (QI) system, in the context of EU approximation.

ACT Global delivered the full research cycle: a desk review and gap analysis of legislation, standards, conformity assessment procedures and the mandates of QI institutions (MoESD, GeoSTM, GAC, MSA, Labour Inspection Service); 17 key informant interviews with QI institutions, construction materials producers, testing laboratories and OSH experts; and a policy brief with English and Georgian executive summaries. The brief found that the legal framework is broadly adequate but weakly applied in practice, with gender-specific risks left unrecorded due to the lack of sex-disaggregated data, and set out policy and enterprise-level recommendations, most of which require no new legislation.