Constituency Building in Georgia - Transfering Lessons from the Balkans

Period: July 2004 - December 2004
Coordinators: Vessela Tcherneva

This pilot project proposed a new generation of democracy assistance involving Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Georgian decision makers, NGO representatives and journalists. The aim of the project was to share with the Georgian decision makers the experience of post-crisis societies in pursuing institutional, legislative, and economic reforms.

The team of experts involved in the project focused their recommendations on:

• how to avoid taking political support for granted;
• how to sustain public support;
• how reformist policies can build up support;
• how to re-elect reformist governments.

The project activities included:

• fact-finding mission;
• selection of a pool of experts;
• travel of the experts to Georgia;
• preparation by the leader of the team of a paper on the measures with anticipated significant effect on the reform process;
• evaluation of the pilot project and formulation of a strategy for future work.