NGOs Coping with New Challenges

Q&A with Keti Khutsishvili, Director of the Eurasia Foundation Georgia Office

Q.: How would you evaluate the current situation in the Georgian non-governmental sector?
 
A.: Civil society, and especially a particular group of non-governmental organizations, has played an important role in the last November revolution in Georgia. Presently a number of leaders of the leading non-governmental organizations have been offered posts in the government, which means that the authorities have acknowledged the experience, knowledge and skills gained in the civil sector and decided to use this potential in governance of country. However, on the other hand, this has weakened the non-governmental sector.
 
At the same time, the authorities pay less attention to the opinion of the non-governmental sector. It was vivid during the constitutional amendments, when the opinion of the civil sector was ignored.
 
Q.: What do you think is the way out of this situation?
 
A.: In my opinion, the situation is to be developed in two ways. First of all, new faces should appear in the non-governmental sector; new knowledge and skills should be gained. Secondly, the authorities should understand that it is of vital importance not to ignore the opinion of the non-governmental sector.
 
Q.: How important activity of the watchdog organizations in Georgia is?
 
A.: I do not rule out that along with changes in the government, the civil society will also go through particular changes, such as development and promotion of socially-oriented organizations. However, at the same time, the organizations should not lose their ‘watchdog’ functions.
 
Noteworthy, that along with the reformist government, we have local authorities in the regions, which are partially appointed and partially elected through previous, fraudulent elections. Hence, I would say that particular changes really took place in the high level authorities; the same cannot be said about the lower level authorities.
 
On this background, the non-governmental organizations should be watchful and monitor the authorities activity and, and give recommendations for carrying out reforms, on the other hand.
 
Serious reforms are to be implemented in the educational system, the prosecutor’s office and police. Monitoring of these reforms and participation in these reforms should be of vital importance for the non-governmental organizations.
 
Q.: How you intend to cooperate with the government in this regard?
 
A.: I think there will be some obstacles by the local authorities in the process of monitoring their activities; however, I believe it will be better situation in this regard than it was before [the November events].  
 
We gained interesting experience in cooperation with the watchdog organizations, when along with the Soros Foundation we supported particular initiatives in 6 towns of Georgia. They aimed at increased involvement of the non-governmental organizations in various fields, such as budget monitoring, control of law-enforcement agencies and local authorities, etc.  
 
However, serious conflicts took place with the local authorities during the implementation of these initiatives. Although, this happened before the November revolution, currently the non-governmental organizations still come across a number of difficulties with the new authorities.
 
Q.: You have mentioned outflow of staff from the non-governmental sector, stressing that this triggers weakening of the sector. So, what kind of capacities the regional non-governmental organizations may have to tackle violations?
 
A.: Of course, this will not be so easy. Many grant recipients have already moved to the local and central authorities. 
 
In this case, we, as well as other donors, should take into account that more attention should be paid to the capacity building and education of the non-governmental organizations. By the way, our project also envisaged capacity building at an institutional level. 
 
Generally speaking, despite different activities of these organizations, we think that they have significantly promoted strengthening of the anti-corruption drive in the regions. 
 
We plan to continue the program. Currently we are negotiating with one of the European partners. In case of success, we will be able to implement a new large-scale program in this field.
 
Q.: Will this program be implemented in regions?
 
A.: Yes; however it may also cover Tbilisi. At the same time, unlike previous years, we will cooperate with the authorities as well. However, be sure, this will not hamper us from funding the programs aiming at monitoring of the government’s activity.