Georgia
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Georgia
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New Approach to Internally Displaced Persons' Assistance GEO-00-003 Background: Half of the almost 250,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Georgia live in crowded collective centers that were renovated seven years ago to be temporary dwellings. Many others continue to live in crowded conditions with host families. Most displaced are also unemployed and are unable to afford quality health care or education. In addition, the displaced are unable to vote in many elections. At the same time, lack of jobs, affordable health care and quality education affects a large number of persons in Georgia who are not displaced. Yet a wide range of policies and programs exist to support the displaced. These programs however, are based on humanitarian assistance and have therefore not focused on helping displaced people restart their lives and take care of themselves, thus adding to the burden of their host communities. This combination of laws and programs is creating ill feeling between the different communities in Georgian society, and is preventing Georgia from attaining its full potential. In light of these conditions faced by IDPs, UNDP, UNHCR, UNOCHA and the World Bank have forged an innovate partnership to substantially improve the lives of displaced persons in Georgia, and their host communities, by reforming government policy and supporting the transition from humanitarian assistance to development entered activities. Objective: The objective of the programme is to substantially improve the lives of IDPs in a manner that reduces tension between IDPs and host communities. This objective shall be achieved through eliminating discrimination and violations of human rights currently suffered by IDPs, primarily through activities that increase opportunities to access their full range of rights as citizens, including equality before the law and access to quality shelter, social services, and most importantly, employment opportunities. Strategy:
To learn more about, and understand the problems faced by the displaced and their host communities, throughout Georgia, a series of studies have been commissioned. These studies concern shelter, access to social services, participation in the job market, community resources, and the law as it related to IDPs.
To help reform government policy and support more appropriate assistance programs, the Government has established a Presidential Commission chaired by the State Minister. The Commission is composed of Ministers, as well as technical experts, including many from the IDP community. The Commission will break bureaucratic blockages that slow the implementation of improved policies and programs.
The Fund was established to test and promote pilot initiatives through a participatory process that may demonstrated successful ways for helping the IPDs and host communities to improve their self-reliance. US$ 1 million was granted by UNDP, UNHCR, the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Swiss Agency for Development Co-operation (SADC). NGOs and other legally recognized organisations will be able to request financial support from the Fund to implement selected innovative programmes in the field of access to land, better housing, vocation training, employment, information regarding rights, and news about existing programmes. The pilot phase should see the implementation of approximately twenty such programmes, amounting between US$20,000 to 100,000 each. Monitoring and evaluation of the pilot phase should set the basis to replicate and enlarge successful pilot programmes during the envisaged main phase. Expected outputs:
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