Institute
for Policy Studies (IPS)
Activity
Report
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Address Mailing
address Tel/Fax E-mail
address Web
– site |
10,
Chavchavadze Ave., 6th Entr., 2nd floor PO
Box # 158 (4) Tbilisi 0108 Georgia +995-32-220060
/ 912743 |
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Description of the Center |
The Institute for
Policy Studies (IPS) is an independent not-for-profit research organisation
focused on promoting contemporary public policy concepts and practices in
Georgia. IPS is committed to providing a forum for substantive dialogue
between representatives of the different branches of the government, the
civil sector and the Georgian public. IPS was launched in Tbilisi in the spring
2002, with the support of the Open Society Institute - Budapest and the Open
Society – Georgia Foundation. The concept behind
launching the Institute was to create a think tank that could bring together
available resources, international experience and technologies in order to
deal with the tasks of studying, analysis, monitoring and initiating public
debate focusing on the most solvent social and political issues, developing
respective policy recommendations and initiatives, promoting the ideas of
good governance and democratic state-building. IPS concentrates its research and discussion on
the key issues of the social domain, on development of respective policies,
legal initiatives and recommendations. IPS intends to cover not only Georgian
issues, but to create a comparative framework for the whole area of the
Southern Caucasus and the Black Sea–Caspian region. As the IPS is only
starting its research activity, most of the projects are at the early stage
of their implementation. Currently, the policy research work of the IPS
concentrates along some of the following priority directions: · Poverty and vulnerability; Strategy for sustainable development and poverty reduction; Generation and gender in the society; Social discrimination/ equity, affirmative action; Healthcare and education opportunities for all; ·
Good
governance on national, regional and local levels; Harmonization of
centre-periphery relations; Local governments, decentralization and
federalization; Efficacy and adequacy of international assistance programs; · Prospects of involvement in European and Euro-Atlantic integration process and related policy changes; Monitoring and implementing European standards in human and minority rights, freedom of information and judiciary, social services and environment protection; ·
Georgia
and the Caucasus in international affairs; Regional stability and
co-operation; Models of security arrangements in new geopolitical
environment, vis á vis the emergence of global terrorism; ·
Regional conflicts and minorities
issue in state building; Democratic participation and integration of
minorities; Population migration, repatriation and adaptation of forced
migrants, Problems of IDPs and refugees; ·
Future
of business-labour relations and social contract; Trade-unions and labour
protection institutions and mechanisms; Human resources, unemployment and
development; |
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Details of senior and/or
management staff |
International Advisory Board: Prof. Vamik Volkan of the University of Virginia, USA Ms.
Pamela Kilpadi,
OSI IPF, Budapest Prof. Theodore Hanf of the University of Freiburg, Germany Prof. Uwe Hentschel
of the University of Leiden, Netherlands Dr. Ivan Krastev of the
Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia. Management is carried out by
two co-directors: Nana Sumbadze works at the Chair of Social Psychology of Tbilisi State University. She received her PhD in social science at Leiden University. Worked in areas of sociology, psychology and public policy. Currently - International Policy Fellow of the Open Society Institute, Budapest. During the last several years was involved in a number of projects related to the areas of social integration, poverty, participation and gender. In 1999 awarded the McArthur Foundation individual grant for the project "Adaptation of Georgian women to economic change". Worked as UNICEF consultant during the preparation of "Women and Children in Georgia: Situation analysis". In 2000 visiting scholar at the Kennan Institute in Washington, DC. Fields of expertise include sociological and social-psychological research, surveys and focus groups, qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Combines research with teaching university courses in Social Psychology, Health Psychology and Environmental Psychology. Combines research with teaching university courses in Social Psychology, Health Psychology and Environmental Psychology. George Tarkhan-Mouravi works currently as a social and political analyst specializing in the fields of Caucasian political processes, democratic transition, and poverty studies. Was involved in developing civic sector in Georgia, having initiated and/or headed a number of NGOs and companies, such as e.g. the Center for Geopolitical and Regional Studies, Georgian Association for Innovative Technologies, Ulevi, and some others. Was involved in a number of research projects dealing with political culture, poverty and social development. Served as a National Coordinator of the UNDP Human Development Report for Georgia, Yearbooks of 1995, 1996 and 1997. Received a number of fellowships and awards - "Research and Writing Grant for Individual Project" by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 1999 – 2000, Contemporary Issues Fellowship of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State; NATO Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Research Fellowship; Open Society Institute International Policy Fellowship. Currently on Editotorial Board of the national Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Programme. |
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Public Policy projects |
PREPARATION OF THE PLAN FOR LAUNCHING A CENTRE FOR POLICY STUDIES:
This was the first
project carried out by IPS, aimed at the preparation of the launching and
subsequent institutional development
of the Institute. The project was funded by the Open Society-Georgia
Foundation, December 2001-March 2002. REGULAR PANEL SURVEY Instrument for collection and analysis of public opinion on social
and political development There is a deficiency in Georgia of reliable and regular data on opinions, participation, social and political activities, preferences and needs of population. Absence of systematic studies does not permit to monitor dynamics of the process of building civil society and to identify hindrances on this way. Non-comparability of exixsting information restrics comparisons both between the groups of population as well as in the same persons over time and hence making inferences on possible reasons and working out recommendations. Especially low is the possibility of getting information concerning different regions of Georgia. The project is aimed at gathering, analysing and
making accessible the information on public opinion, perceptions and
preferences of the country’ s population in order for decission makers and
exacutive bodies of all levels to base their activities on reliable data. The
project implies the conduct of regular (semi-annual) panel survey of the
Georgia’s population, focusing on the study of popular attitudes toward key
issues of Georgia’s social, economic and political reality. The survey is
carried out in all 11 regions of Georgia under the jurisdiction of the
government. The first round of the panel survey was carried out from 14
October till 9 November 2002 on most of the territory of Georgia, with
exception of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The total of 1100 persons have been
interviewed, selected so as to take into account demographic variables such
as urban/rural settlement type as well as gender and age groups, considered
to be a representative sample of the Georgia’s population. (Funded by the OSI
Local Governments Initiative, 2002-2003) |
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COMMUNITY INPUT INTO THE POVERTY REDUCTION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
PROGRAM (PREGP) IN GEORGIA (in coalition with Partnership for Social Initiative and the Georgian Association for Innovative Technologies) The activities within the framework of the
project implied meeting community based organisations (CBOs) in various parts
of Georgia, in order to enhance civic participation in the PREFGP process.
The meetincs were focused on the official PREGP discussion materials
published in October 2001, as well as more recent materials produced by the
Governmental Sub-commissions and submitted to the Secretariat. Community
feedback was presented to the Government Commission for PREGP, as well as
supplementary information such as interests expressed by community
representative in respect to participation in the PREGP (both in preparation
and implementation phases), their suggestions concerning community
involvement in the M & E of the PREGP implementation. (Funding: MerciCorps International,
USAID: July-September 2002) SUPPORT OF CIVIL PARTICIPATION IN THE WORK OF THE LOCAL COUNCIL OF VALE, GEORGIA (in
partnership with the Centre for Social Development of Maskheti) The project
intended to strengthen the role of the local council of Vale township in
development of one of the southern regions of Georgia, and at the same time
to promote civil participation of the population groups, in particular
teachers and medical doctors. Funding: GOCISP (Georgian Governance and Civil Society
Project), DfID UK, 2002-2003 NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND CONCEPTUAL OUTLINE OF THE
DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY FOR TWO RAYONS OF SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHETI We plan to work on a conceptual model of economic development for a mountainous and multi-ethnic region of Samtskhe-Javakheti, characterized by extremely broad spectrum of burning problems, where ongoing withdrawal of Russian military base, as well as developments linked to major transportation projects may totally change the economic picture and need thorough and cautious planning. At the same time we hope to utilize experience acquired during this work, in order to consider broader task of economic development policies on national level.. We have already initiated within the framework of the Council of Europe a concrete project for international cooperation between different regions of Europe, and we hope to use internationally available experience in order to proceed with above-mentioned development concept. The format and the funding of the project is currently discussed with the OSGF. (funded
by the OSGF, 2003) DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE Local elections in
Georgia of June 2002 and public opinion: Sociological survey in the city
of Tbilisi This was a priority topic due to elections of the local governments held in Summer 2002, hence the time restrictions were imposed by the timing of the elections. During previous parliamentary and presidential elections the members of the IPS had carried out several opinion surveys related to political and democratic culture, political attitudes and preferences, and the political participation of the population. IPS carried out similar survey immediately after the elections, using this opportunity to better understand the direction of democratic transition in the society and social and political activity of the population, consider policies to be chosen by the civil society and the international pro-democracy actors in order to strengthen participation, democratic attitudes and skills among the population. (No external funding, June-July 2002). ECONOMIC PROSPECTS FOR SPECIALISED TOURISM IN SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHETI: ECOMUSEUM (in
partnership with the Centre for Social Development of Maskheti) The project implies to carry out a feasibility study
and assess the aplicability of the model of EcoMuseum as a means to boost
tourism in of Georgia’s South – the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. Funding:
OSGF, 2003 QUO VADIS: GEORGIA: PUBLICATIONS
SERIES, DEBATES AND TV TALK SHOWS Georgia is supposed to have two major elections in a
few years to come – parliamentary in 2003 and presidential in 2005. Under
such conditions it is especially important to carry out ongoing public debate
on the most solvent issues of social and political life. Political parties,
as well as conspicuous political figures, should have an opportunity, and
compelling interest, to present their political programmes, their viewpoints
and their attitudes toward general priorities on their agenda, and toward the
most burning problems of public concern, as well as their vision and
recommendations for the solution of these.
Although, until now, political parties to their programmes and
strategic concepts paid little attention as the public attention was
predominantly focused on individual leaders and political intrigue rather
than ideas and vision, now the situation is changing. While the process of
maturing of the civil society is taking place, and in the absence of
charismatic individuals to dominate the political arena with the forthcoming
retirement of the current president, public debate organised by the civil
society is attracting more attention The project aims at
stimulating public discourse on burning issues of Georgian opolitics, focused
in the first place at in depth discussion of the issues in question but also
at revealing the viewpoints and
programmatic priorities of the leading political parties in Georgia in the
process of their pre-electoral campaigns. Active TV campaign is supposed to
be at the core of the project implementation. (Submitted for funding to
Save the Children/USAID: Citizens Advocacy Program: 2003-2004). INTEGRATION OF MINORITIES INTO POLITICAL AND
ECONOMIC LIFE: MOVING TOWARD EUROPEAN STANDARDS Although there is a long way until Georgia could be considered as eligible for full integration into European structures, due to general orientation of both the population and the political élites toward the West, this serves as a strong incentive for adjusting to European standards in all spheres of life, including the human rights area, legislation, minority issues, social and economic statistics, technological norms, and many other aspects. We intend to start monitoring this process of adjustment in a number of specific areas linked to democratisation process. The idea is to follow the same line and cover the same topics as the OSI initiated EU Accession Monitoring Program (Minorities protection, Judicial independence, etc.), thus relying strongly on expertise and methodological assistance available in the framework of this program, elaborated during the work on country reports for accession states – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, and others. In particular, the first area we plan to cover will be the minority rights and their protection in Georgia (possibly later we could expand to cover other countries of South Caucasus – Armenia and Azerbaijan), preparing a comprehensive publication on this issue. The project is at the early stage of development. |
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Workshops and seminars |
POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT IN GEORGIA: PUBLIC
PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPING THE GOVERNMENT’S PROGRAM: Series of Workshops One of priorities of IPS developing a
systemic approach to poverty reduction in Georgia, considered as priority by
the Government as well as by leading international organizations involved in
the region – the World Bank, the IMF, the UNDP, EU TACIS, USAID, and others.
The government made an attempt to develop a conceptual framework for such
process, the National Program for Overcoming Poverty and Economic Growth,
published recently in order to initiate public debate around it. Together
with a number of non-governmental organizations, the IPS was actively
involved in preparing the draft document, in order to make it more logically
consistent and adequate, through a sequence of general and sectoral workshops
organized by the Partnership for Social Initiative, and the National Expert
on Participation, Dr. David Gzirishvili. The activity was funded by British
Department for International Development (DfID). March–August, 2002. |
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Dissemination activities |
IPS intends to carry out in 2003-2004 intensive TV
campaign within the framework of the project Quo Vadis, related to
forthcoming parliamentary and presidential election in Georgia |
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Recent Publications |
1.
Sumbadze,
N., & Tarkhan-Mouravi, G. Panel
Survey of the Georgia’s Population: October 2002: Brief outline of results.
IPS, Tbilisi, 2003 (In English and Georgian) 2.
Hentschel,
U. & Sumbadze, N. (2002) Individual differences in mindscapes and
attitudes. Social Behavior and
Personality, 30. 3.
Sumbadze,
N., Muslim Population of Southern Georgia: Challenges of Repatriation. In
Ethnic-Confessional Groups and Challenges to Civic Integration in Georgia.
Tbilisi. CIPDD. (2002). 4.
Sumbadze,
N., Social Assessment in EIA. In
Proceedings of the CENN Workshop (2002): Environmental Impact Assessment. p. 45 (In English and
Russian) 5.
Sumbadze,
N., & Kitiashvili, A. Pupils’ attitude towards smoking. Georgian
Journal of Psychology, 5. pp.41-52. (2002) 6.
Sumbadze,
N., Pirtskalava, E., & Hentshhel, U. (2002). The congruence of the
perception of family members and
factors determining it. In Caucassian Messenger, No.6. pp.198-206. (In Georgian). 7.
G.
Tarkhan-Mouravi, Around
Georgian-Ossetian Relations, Iber-Iron,
#1, January 2003 (in Russian) 8. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi, From Independence to Independence: 70 Years of Soviet Georgia, Bennett & Bloom Publ., London (in print, draft text available at: http://rolfgross.tripod.com) 9.
G.
Tarkhan-Mouravi, Georgia’s unsteady
step westward, Perihelion,
European Rim Policy and Investment Council (ERPIC), December 2002, http://www.erpic.org/Georgia'sunsteadystepwestward.html
10. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi, Some considerations related to the
resolution of Georgian-Ossetian conflict, paper at the conference “Georgian-Ossetian Conflict: Analysis and
Search for Regulation Paths”, Tbilisi, September 23, 2002. 11. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi, A “Realistic” Approach to Regional
Security in the South Caucasus, Policy Paper, International Policy Fellowship
Program, 2002: http://www.policy.hu/mouravi
12. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi, Some aspects of interethnic relations in Georgia, Paper at the Conference "Framework Convention on Minorities Rights and Georgian Legislation", Tbilisi, 31 January – 1 February 2002 (in print) 13.
George
Tarkhan-Mouravi, Some aspects of
inter-ethnic relations in Georgia, Paper at the Conference
"Framework Convention on Minorities Rights and Georgian
Legislation", Tbilisi, 31
January – 1 February 2002 14. Sumbadze, N & Hentschel U. (2001) Attitudes toward different aspects of mobility in a cross-cultural context. External report for the Daimler-Benz AG, Berlin. Mainz: GPS. (205 pp) 15.
George
Tarkhan-Mouravi, Brief History of
Georgia, article for the "Eastern Europe, Russia and Central
Asia" encyclopedia, Europa Publications, London, 2001, 2002 16. George Tarkhan-Mouravi & Nana Sumbadze, Poverty and Anti-Poverty Measures in Georgia: Actors, Factors, Approaches and Trends, paper at the RC 19 Annual Conference 'Old and New Social Inequalities. What Challenges for Welfare States?', Oviedo, Spain, September 7-9, 2001 17. Nana Sumbadze and George Tarkhan-Mouravi. Repatriation and Adaptation of Georgia’s Meskhetians: Society and State in Supra-National Context. Paper presented at RC 19 conference of International Sociological Association "Old and New Social Inequalities and Social Policy" What Challenges for Welfare States?', Oviedo, Spain, September 7-9, 2001 18. Nana Sumbadze and George Tarkhan-Mouravi. Settlement Type of Repatriated Moslem Meskhetians and Attitudes of the Local Population toward Them, , Proceedings of the 2nd Conference 'Problems of Repatriation, Rehabilitation and Integration of the Population, Deported in 1944 from Southern Georgia', Tbilisi, Georgia, December 19, 2001. pp. 241-248. (In Georgian and Russian) 19.
Sumbadze,
N. (2001). Social sciences in Georgia.
Paper presented at International Regional Conference on Social Sciences and
Humanities in the Southern Caucasus, Tbilisi, 9-10 April, 2001. 20.
Nana
Sumbadze and George
Tarkhan-Mouravi, Social capital and
adaptation of Meskhetian repatriates, Paper at a conference in Xanthi,
Greece, July 2001 21. Nana Sumbadze and George Tarkhan-Mouravi, Democratic Value Orientations & Political Culture in Georgia:, Occasional Papers in Public Administration & Public Policy of the NISPAcee (The Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe), Bratislava, v. II, No 3, Summer 2001, pp. 3-43 22.
G.
Tarkhan-Mouravi, “Tbilisi, Georgia: The
City and the Society in Transition”, paper at the "World Forum of
Urbanising World" - Scott Greer Sessions, Harriman Institute, Columbia
University, 5 – 7 June, 2001 (in print) 23. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi, The making and the re-making of the Georgian nation: challenges internal and external, paper at the 2001 World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, New York, Columbia University / Harriman Institute, 4-6 April 2001 24. G. Tarkhan-Mouravi, National Culture of Georgia, article in: Ember, Melvin and Carol R. Ember (eds.), "Countries & Their Cultures", Macmillan Library Reference Encyclopedia, Yale & New York, 2001 |
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