Assistance to the NGO/Radio Channel "Green Wave" in Advocating Principles of Sustainable Human Development

GEO-99-005
Total budget: USD 120,000
UNDP Sector: Promoting Sound Governance
Starting Date: September 1999
Duration: 12 months

Following the collapse of the former USSR, Georgia has embarked on the way of democratisation. A new Constitution was adopted in 1995 according to which Georgia is a democratic republic with a President, a Parliament and local governments, elected through popular vote. New structures and Institutions have been established as well as political parties, including opposition ones. The Public Defenders Office has been set up as an independent institution for supervising the protection of Human Rights, newly recognised in the country. A civic society has emerged and got organised and mobiles, primarily through the creation of a large number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and independent media. However, in spite of number of significant achievements, democratic changes are still fragile and need to be further strengthened in order to secure Georgia’s successful transition and democratisation process. This will not happen unless the population acquire a better knowledge and understanding of the complexities of the transition and democratic reforms process, related Government’s strategy and policy, including the management of the assistance provided by the donor community, as well as of responsibilities lying at the grass-root level. The civil society organisations seem to be naturally designated to play such an advocacy role.

The development objective of this project is to promote the role of national public media and of the NGO sector in advocating principles of Sustainable Human Development and to raise awareness among the public of global and national development strategies and priorities. The project will focus on building the technical capacity of the NGO / Radio Channel "Green Wave" to broadcast programmes that address specific issues of priority in the Georgian context, including, inter alia, issues of human rights, gender, environmental protection campaign, the NGO/Radio Channel would have built its capacity to sustain its operations on an independent basis.

• To purchase, install and test necessary transmitting equipment;

• To establish ad-hoc working groups with journalists and radio technical staff to collect and process information, create, record and broadcast radio programmes;

• To initiate a dialogue on the air between selected representatives of the non-governmental, governmental and private sectors, involving radio listeners through direct phone calls;

The project is expected to produce: I) Improved transmission quality and increased coverage of the broadcasting of the NGO/Radio channel "Green Wave", ii) Thirteen thematic radio programmes on key development issues, broadcasted on a daily and/or weekly basis for one year, iii) A discussion forum, established to initiate and support a dialogue between non-governmental. Governmental and private sectors, IV) Opinion polls carried out among the radio-listeners to introduce necessary changes into the radio-programmes in order to ensure a high level of quality and an adequate response to the needs of the audience, v) Increased promotion-related activities in order to assist the Radio in become financially self-sustainable.