In 2000, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted Convention No. 183, better known as the Maternity Protection Convention. The purpose of the Convention was to protect the health and safety of mother and child and to promote the equality of all women in the labour force. Essentially, this short document sets several guidelines, or minimum standards, that ought to be implemented globally for pregnant women and working mothers to be adequately protected in the labour market.

Governments around the world are racing against the clock to help communities damaged by the economic fallout of COVID-19. Eager to bring good news to their constituents, they are brokering deals likely to bring employment and much-needed international investments. Georgia, of course, is no exception. Recent FDI projects include a plastics processing plant with a stated capacity to employ 400 local workers in plastic waste recycling jobs and the associated sections of the supply chain.

We live in a world where the production of a single good typically involves manufacturing inputs from many different countries around the globe. For example, a typical iPhone production takes place in as many as 7 countries, including the USA, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and even Switzerland. This is what is known to economists as global value chains (GVC). The emergence of GVC more than two decades ago transformed the way economists think about countries’ comparative advantage and specialization in production.