| The “Support to Local Government” project assisted the Administration of the Imereti Region to prepare a Regional Social and Economic Development Plan. Although Imereti was one of the Regions of Georgia with some economic potential, its population faced widespread social hardship. Addressing this issue was one of the main priorities of the project.
The main objective of this two-year programme was to support the development of local government and regional development planning and implementation capability in the Republic of Georgia. The project was based on four interrelated components:
- Providing training and capacity building to regional, city, town, village and other administrations in economic and social planning, development of regional and local plans and information collection and analysis;
- Providing assistance to the local authorities to draw up an economic and social regional plan for Imereti region, promoting economic development within the region which include agriculture, food processing and tourism, reforming municipal administrative and legislative procedures to encourage economic development;
- Developing Information Centres in the 11 rayon administrations, other regional authorities and the Committee for Local Self-Governance and Regional Policy in order to attract potential investors to the region;
- Developing a unified management information system to provide the information needed to produce a regional strategy, economic development programmes and development plans for the region.
The project was highly participative and mirrored the philosophy of the Governor of the Region who believed strongly in involving the community in developing policy and democracy. Consequently, the project engaged with voluntary groups, NGO’s and community organisations to develop their involvement in social policy and partnership development. The project worked with IDA, which is an intermediary stakeholder that encourages and supports NGO development. A particular feature of the work related to service delivery and the project evaluated others that include public/private participation and the development of social partnerships between the Administration and NGO’s. Public information and communication was an important feature of the work. |
