Overview

The program, "Capacity-building of the Georgian Leadership Community for Improved Decision-making and Negotiation Skills" is designed to assist the Georgian government to respond to the governance challenges. The project aims to engage directly with middle level public servants and civil-society representatives in practical exercises in policy development and negotiation techniques. As such, these exercises not only aim to modernize Georgian public administration and public policy, they seek to deliver actionable policy documents related to issues of national importance. Key to this project is the introduction and reinforcement of modern management knowledge, practice and skills among public officials.  Their efforts will be consistent with and supportive of principles of gender equality.

The program is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and its main implementer is the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS). GFSIS' principal partners in this project are the Swedish Institute for Public Administration (SIPU International) and the Estonian School of Diplomacy (ESD).

The program will promote a likeminded leadership culture that is accountable, oriented to meeting the needs of Georgian society, capable in making well-founded decisions in a transparent manner, and flexible in responding to changing circumstances. Furthermore, it aims to improve cooperation between organizations and sectors in Georgia and strengthen the capacity of government officials to represent Georgia in its engagement with other states and in international organizations.

The program which will be implemented during four years (2009 - 2013) will include the following components:

Training for government officials in policy and negotiation techniques

During the six month period, the Georgian public servants will go through the training in public policy and negotiation techniques, as well as will work on the pertinent for the country policy issue under the guidance of GFSIS mentors. The best five papers will be published in Georgian and in English. The training will be followed by a public discussion of the paper and a study visit to Estonia.

More

Training of trainers (ToT)

Through the project's training of trainers (ToT) component, Georgian professionals will develop the Policy and Negotiations Training Program curriculum and teaching materials in Georgian. Topics covered under this training include Public Administration, Public Policy Planning, Negotiation Techniques, Gender and Diversity, Cost Benefit Analysis, Project Management/Change Management and Program Evaluation.  Under the project framework, professional training programs will be implemented in the above listed fields for Georgian government employees and civil society representatives in the Georgian language.

Professional development training for HR managers

The project's HR component aims to provide knowledge in modern Human Resources Management (HRM) practices among Georgian HR-managers within line ministries and other governmental agencies. A second objective of the component is to build domestic capacity to deliver high quality training in HRM.

Knowledge and resource sharing

This component is aimed to promote greater communication, knowledge sharing, consultation and collaboration among public-policy stakeholders across the Government of Georgia and civil society through establishing a project's website and organizing number of alumni retreats.