Education and training is one of the pillars of GFSIS. The Foundation offers a variety of short courses and yearlong programs, in partnership with Georgian and foreign institutions. Students come from across the Georgian government, civil society, and the business sector. Instructors come from Georgia's leading universities and research institutions and from their foreign counterparts. The selection of students is highly competitive, and all programs are free of charge to participants.
Capacity Building in Strategic Decision-Making: Lessons from the Asian Pacific Development Experience
21 October – 4 November 2007
The Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS), together with Sasakawa Peace Foundation, is hosting the fifth training programme in “Capacity Building in Strategic Decision-Making: Lessons from the Asian Pacific Development Experience.” The programme will be held in Tbilisi, Georgia, at the premises of the Foundation, and run from 22 October to 2 November.
The goal of the training programme is to familiarise participants with the development strategies of South-East Asian countries and to discuss the development trends for the countries of the South Caucasus. The lectures will be delivered by prominent experts in the field from South-East Asia and Georgia.
Participants in the training programme will be representatives of the governmental, non-governmental and business sectors as well as members of the media and academic communities of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. All expenses will be covered by the GFSIS with a further $300 stipend paid out to the participants.
The completion of the programme will be followed by a two-day Alumni Retreat at the Gudauri Sports Hotel, 3 – 4 November, where this year’s group will be joined by the programme graduates from the previous four training courses. The retreat aims at enhancing the co-operation between the graduates and establishing and strengthening cross-country links. This year’s Retreat will focus upon the topic: The Caucasus: A Bridge Between East and West.
Interested applicants should:
• Be representatives of the governmental, non-governmental or business sectors or members of the media and academic communities from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
• Have sufficient English and Russian language abilities to participate in discussions and to use resource materials in these languages.
• Submit a CV with a cover letter no later than 15 September 2007 to the following email, training@gfsis.org, with the following note in the subject line “Capacity Building Training Session – Application.”
Due to the volume of applications received, only successful applicants will be contacted. Interviews, which will take place in Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi, will begin at the end of September.
International Relations and National Security for Journalists
The projects aims at training journalists, media specialists as well as mid-career governmental officials on issues pertaining to national and international security, foreign affairs and foreign policy.
Political and Economic Issues for Journalists
The program trains 20 journalists in the issues related to foreign, domestic, security policies, economics and important aspects of the states in the transitional period.
Support to the PCA Implementation Process
The project intends to build up Georgian government’s capacity to comply with requirements of the EU-Georgia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement by conducting trainings and seminars for government officials working on EU integration issues.
Capacity Building for the National Security Council of Georgia
The project aims at strengthening the capacity of National Security Council of Georgia and its professional staff through training and advice.
International Relations and National Security
The program intended for public servants of the different governmental agencies and which is focused on the three main areas: International Relations, National Security and Analysis of Political Economy.
Public Policy Knowledge Network (PPKN)
The project aims at establishing a policy working group with professionals coming from the President’s office, the Prime Minister’s office as well as from 11 ministries, developing in-service training facilities as well as the professional skills of public servants including training them for the public administration school.
Training of National Minority Leaders
The project aims at training leaders of the different national minorities living in Georgia in the fields of economic and social policies.
Capacity Building in International Relations in the South Caucasus
The project Capacity Building in International Relations is an initiative sponsored by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and held under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. It is implemented by the Graduate Institute of International Studies (GIIS) in cooperation with the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS).
The general aim of the project is to strengthen the capacity of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia for effective representation at the international level and to foster ties between government agencies of the three countries. An additional objective is to build the capacity of a local non-governmental partner in organising events according to an international standard. The means to achieve these objectives is to train young government officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the subjects of human rights, international economics and negotiation techniques.
The project was preceeded by a series of diplomatic training courses for Eastern European and Central Asian countries organised by the GIIS in the framework of the Swiss International Relations University Seminar (SIRUS). In 1997, a group of young diplomats from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia attended courses in Geneva. Based on this experience and the ensuing joint deliberations of the SDC, the GIIS and the Ambassadors of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in Geneva, a pilot project was initiated in summer 2001 with two courses being held in Tbilisi in partnership with the Georgian Independent Diplomatic Academy (GIDA). Following the success of the pilot phase, the project was prolonged for four more courses until summer 2004.
Another stage of the project--the training course in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law was held in October 1-14 2006.
During the training GFSIS hosted 18 participants, young professionals from various governmental agencies of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
List of the Tasks Conducted by GFSIS and Evaluation:
The objective of GFSIS was to provide logistical support for the training, plan group lunches and dinners, arrange for local transportation and airport transfers, and organize a guided tour of Tbilisi, a day trip, cultural program and two public lectures. The overall goal was to assist in the successful implementation of the training, as well as to provide a friendly, professional atmosphere for the participants. Certain provisions of the contract have been carried out by experienced and reliable travel agencies, Caucasus travel and Traveler Club.
• Logistical Support. GFSIS provided classroom, computer room and printing facilities, necessary material needed for the training, such as flip charts, writing supplies, power point projector, as well as organized the coffee breaks. GFSIS copied and prepared the course reading material for each participant.
• Lunch and Dinner reservations. GFSIS organized lunches at the beginning of each module at Different Restaurants with Georgian and European cuisine: Kopala, Meidani, Metekhis Chrdili and Profile. GFSIS also took care of the group dinners which took place at the Georgian Restaurants: “The Old House” and “The Mill”.
• Local Transportation and Airport transfers: GFSIS has contracted the Traveler Club to arrange transportation within the city and for the Day trip. Caucasus Travel arranged the transportation for the Tbilisi Tour. Transfers from and to the airport of the Azeri delegation and the visiting lecturers were provided using the transport of GFSIS.
• Visit of Tbilisi and Day Trip. Visit of Tbilisi and a day trip were partly organized by Caucasus Travel and partly by Traveler Club. The usual site for the day trip was Mtskheta-Mtianeti region (Mtskheta-Ananouri-Passanaouri). The professional tour guide provided a wonderful opportunity for the training participants to get familiar with the Georgian culture and heritage. The only complain was about the lunch boxes provided by a famous restaurant:” Zandukeli 40” with the advice of Caucasus travel. The participants did not like the taste of food in the Lunch boxes, that’s why GFSIS decided to continue a day trip with a picnic in Passanauri open air Restaurant, with traditional Georgian cuisine, which the participants enjoyed very much.
• Press-Conference: GFSIS has organized a press conference on October 12 2006. Though the activity to attract and invite the media representatives was carried out, only two media outlets showed up, one of the journalists was a representative of the most widely read newspapers in Georgia: “24 Hours” and another was a representative of the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” The interest shown by the media towards the courses was not high.
• Public Lectures: GFSIS organised two public lectures for the professors of Graduate Institute of International Studies: Prof. Andrea Bianci, on the topic: Enforcement of International Law Norms against Terrorism, and for Prof. Louise Doswald-Beck on the topic: Present Challenges for International Humanitarian Law. The audience at the public lectures consisted of representatives of different government and media agencies, members of GFSIS Alumni network.
• Cultural Program. The cultural program, organised by GFSIS consisted of two separate events: The first event: visit to the “Georgian Finger Theatre”, attending the performance played exclusively for the training participants, and the second event: Billiard Evening, which got the favorable fittback from the Georgian, Armenian and Azeri delegations who enjoyed playing in groups and actively communicated with each other during the cultural evening.
Capacity Building in Strategic Decisionmaking: Lessons from the Development Experience in the Asia-Pacific Region
The goal of the project is the capacity enhancement of South Caucasus civil servants, which will lead to the reinforcement of governmental administrative capacity for stabilizing the society of South Caucasus. The project also aims to contribute to the capacity building of strategic decision making and create a network of future leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia through training policymakers and civil society representatives which will raise and cultivate regional consciousness for realization of united efforts to address the challenges the region faces.
08 Apr
2008 |
 | New Training For PPKN Teams
Dan Tucker, of Dalhousie University (Halifax), delivered a series of lectures to the 2007-08 Public Policy Knowledge Network (PPKN) Policy Analysis Teams at the GFSIS from 8 – 10 April, 2008. |
11 Dec
2007 |
 | PPKN Programme Continues at the Foundation
The PPKN programme, managed jointly by the GFSIS and the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), began teaching and training policy analysis teams from five Georgian state ministries within a specially formulated policy development curriculum in September 2007.
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26 Oct
2007 |
 | Training at GFSIS
The GFSIS, together with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (Tokyo), is currently hosting the fifth session in the ongoing training programme, entitled “Capacity Building in Strategic Decision-Making: Lessons from the Asia-Pacific Development Experience,” which will take place from 22 October to 2 November.
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11 Jul
2007 |
 | National Integration Programme Begins
A new programme began at the Foundation on 10 July, 2007 with the arrival to Tbilisi of a selected group of young community leaders from the ethnic Armenian community of Samtskhe-Javakheti.
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