The “Drive Democracy” project will be implemented by EECMD in partnership with the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) with an overall focus to empower and educate the Georgian voters to better understand, represent and advance their legitimate interests. This will be achieved by the innovative combination of merging capacity building of voters with policy dialogue between all regional and national stakeholders and reinforcing the process with citizen-led local projects to ensure accountability and responsiveness of elected officials in the five regions of Georgia: Tbilisi, Kakheti Shida-Kartli, Imereti and Adjara.

The project takes advantage of EECMD’s decade long experience in Democracy Education/Democracy Schools and its policy development work with political parties in Georgia as well as the outstanding expert capacity of EPRC in the issues of economic development and policy planning. Our strategy combines the three mutually reinforcing activity blocks aimed at 1: Equipping citizen groups with skills, knowledge, technology, and information necessary to engage in a policy dialogue with elected officials and local authorities; 2: creating sustainable and regularly functioning political dialogue formats that will enable citizen constituencies to engage with their elected representatives around policy issues; 3: enhancing the accountability of political actors and political parties through local initiatives supported by sub-granting activity and the annual national high-level conferences.

The combination of the improved capacity to better understand and articulate one’s political and economic interests, heightened organizational effectiveness and financial capability for voter group action to achieve accountability of their representatives and the establishment and operation of policy dialogue formats to democratically pursue common interests will substantially alter the status quo towards more responsible, transparent and accountable politics and governance in Georgia.

Implementing organization: Eastern European Centre for Multiparty Democracy

Partner: The Economic Policy Research Center – EPRC

Geographic Focus: Kakheti, Shida Kartli, Imereti, Adjara and Tbilisi

Duration: 36 months

“This activity is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).”