Tbilisi. Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) signs a Memorandum of Cooperation with Post Bellum. “Post Bellum is a non-governmental nonprofit organization which documents the memories of witnesses of the important historical phenomenon of the 20th century and tries to pass these stories on to the broader public. It was founded in 2001. The organization was founded by a group of journalists and historians. Post Bellum’s core project is the Memory of Nations, a collection of memories from people who experienced the totalitarian eras of the 20th century as well as photographs, newspapers, and various historical records. The collection is comprised of about 12 thousands of witness stories and is accessible to the public through an online database. IDFI is actively working on memory and disinformation studies. IDFI shares Post Bellum's mission and visions on the above-mentioned issues, especially the importance of telling the stories of victims of totalitarianism. Based on this, the organizations agree on sharing knowledge with each other and working on or developing new projects together in these directions”. Read more… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) publishes an interview with Nino Chkhobadze, an environmental defender, Co-Chair of the Greens Movement of Georgia/Friends of the Earth - Georgia. “The Chernobyl disaster contradicted a narrative about Soviet power or predominance in the field of science, threatened the politics of the Soviet Union. That is why, for a long period of time, they tried in the USSR to hide information about Chernobyl. “Even today, cases of the high level of lead [in the blood] in western Georgia, in our opinion, maybe the result of the Chernobyl disaster”. Read more… Source:idfi.ge

Tbilisi. On 3 February 2021 the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), with the financial support of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, held the online conference “Discovery, Archaeological Research and Commemoration of the Mass Burial Sites of the Victims of the Soviet Regime – International Experience”. Read more… The recording of the conference is available here… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. UN Women is implementing Georgia’s first-ever Time Use Survey. The survey will be carried out by GEOSTAT and findings will become available at the end of 2021. How much time is spend by women and men on: Household work; Paid job; Education, sport and recreation; Transport and technologies; Volunteerism and other activities – Those are issues, the survey will cover. Read more…  Source: The page in the social network

Tbilisi. After a long break, NDI published a new poll results regarding attitudes towards COVID-19 and disinformation. New data reflects data collected between June 26-30, through telephone interviews with a nationwide representative sample of Georgia’s adult population, excluding occupied territories that included 1,550 completed interviews. Recearch  Read more  Source: The page in the social network

Tbilisi. Economic Policy Research Center publishes a policy document – “COVID-19 era and investment perspectives”. The document was prepared within the framework of an economic discussion platform, KAS EPRC Economic Arena, founded by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) and Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC) in 2019. The platform offers analytical documents to the government and public, which documents enable stakeholders to evaluate specific outcomes and effects of initiated and, in some cases, already made decisions. Read more…  Source: The website of the organization in a social network

Tbilisi. Soviet Past Research Laboratory addresses the Government of Georgia with a statement. “It is more than 4 months already that state archives and the National Parliamentary Library have been restricted to receive citizens and provide services to them due to announcement of the Coronavirus pandemic and imposition of respective measures - quarantine and prohibition of mass gatherings at public spaces. It has been almost 1 month since most of the public and private institutions resumed to serve citizens, taking into account appropriate measures of protection against the virus. Unfortunately, state archives and the Parliamentary Library are still closed. There is no information available on when they are going to resume their work. Considering the threat posed by the pandemic, community of researchers and readers adequately appraised imposed restrictions during recent months. These restrictions have created a lot of obstacles to us in the research process. Following to the current situation today, we demand to have these institutions resume reception of researchers and readers as soon as possible, taking into account respective security measures”, - is stated in the address. Read more… Source: sovlab.ge

Tbilisi. The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) publishes an article: 5G technology, Russian disinformation and coronavirus. The article is about 5G technology related conspiracy theories around the world, including Georgia. Not a small number of people consider this technology to be life-threatening and, in the period of the pandemic, have even linked it to spread of COVID 19. There are two groups created in a social network in Georgia that oppose this technology, furthermore, there is even a manifesto related to restriction of introduction of a new generation wireless internet. “In reality, 5G is the fifth generation of a wireless communication technology used by smartphones and other mobile devices to connect to the Internet. Like 4G LTE and 3G networks, 5G is transmitted via radio waves that do not exceed an electromagnetic spectrum safe for humans”, - is stated in the article. Read more… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. On February 25, there was conducted a presentation of a book – “My adventure and some memories” at Writers’ House of Georgia.  “Soviet Past Research Laboratory” presented memories of Christine (Badu) Todua-Tsulukidze, a woman living as a political emigrant in Berlin since 1921. She emigrated together with Mikheil Tsulukidze, her Social – Democrat husband, and settled in Berlin, where Christine managed to obtain higher medical education and pursue successful medical practice. In her memories she retells specifically about her tough life experience.  Read more…  Source: http://sovlab.ge

Tbilisi. On December 21-23, Soviet Past Research Laboratory organized a combined, basic course for beginner researchers – “Archival research to rethink history of the XX century”. “The lecture was delivered by Irakli Khvadagiani, a historian, researcher at Soviet Past Research Laboratory.  The course consists of 2 informal, condensed, practice-oriented lecture-type meetings aiming to assist interested listeners as much as possible in obtaining tangible knowledge about basic principles of archival research”, - is stated on the website of the organization in a social network. Read more…  Source:T he website of the organization in a social network

Tbilisi. The Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) publishes its next blog post. The blog "Public Attitude to Conflicts in South Caucasus” aims "to find out how the opinions of the population of South Caucasian countries regarding conflicts, existing in the region, change. Overall, if Georgians and Azerbaijanis have similar thoughts about future status of Abkhazia, the viewpoints of Armenian citizens are significantly different. What’s regarding the attitude towards Nagorno-Karabakh, the position of Azerbaijani population is stronger than that of Armenians, while Georgian citizens either refrain from expressing their point of view, or they do not have an opinion in this regard” – is stated on the web-page of the organization. In full… Source:blog.crrc.ge

Tbilisi. Presentation and photo exhibition of scientific-research project "Scientific Research of the Shareula Valley" was held on November 4. The project was organized by the academic circle of students of the Ilia University and CSO "Latitude" and was implemented with support of the Children and Youth Development Fund of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs. Key objective of the project was to organize a long-term expedition in Racha, and namely in the Shareula Valley and to develop the touristic routes and maps of the Valley. A special package was developed as a result of research and expedition for the National Tourism Agency and the Ministry of Environment. The Director of the Children and Youth Development Fund Irakli Zhorzholiani has attended the event. Source: page of the Children and Youth Development Fund in the social network.

Mtskheta-Mtianeti. National Association of Local Authorities organized the First Focus group in the Municipality of Dusheti. The focus group was pilot public meeting, which gathered local stakeholders (representatives of municipal board, local NGOs, experts) in the framework of the Baseline Study on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation at the Local Level to review and discuss collected information on climate change in Dusheti municipality. The Baseline Study on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation at the Local Level envisages detailed assessment of local problems and challenges related to climate change in each of Georgian municipality and along with the Study of International Experience on Adaptation and Climate Protection at the Local Level and the Analysis of Capacities of Local Authorities will serve as a background for elaboration of the Climate Road Maps for the municipalities of Georgia.  The First Working Meeting of the Baseline Survey  was hel within the framework of program "institutionalization of Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Georgian Regions” which is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is implemented by the National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia (NALAG).

Tbilisi. On July 13 the National Library of the Parliament of Georgia hosted the presentation of the study - "Generations and Values", carried out by the Institute for Policy Studies. The study, which was carried out with support of the "Open Society - Georgia" Foundation, aims at establishing the differences between generations in respect of values and identifying the challenges for the country's democratic development. Two value orientations were selected as the study tools - individualism, collectivism, and the materialistic, post-materialistic and  related values. In addition, studied were the related factors such as trust, optimism, self-assessment, etc. The study was conducted on 21 November - 19 December 2011 in Tbilisi and all regions of Georgia, covering 1,058 individuals of the three generations.

Imereti. On July 12, the Director of NDI's Georgia Office Luis Navarro held the news briefing in the "Ayeti Palace" Hotel in Kutaisi. According to the results of NDI's public opinion poll, along with the upcoming elections employment is still a top priority for the population. 52% of the interviewed believe creation of jobs is the issue of concern, 34% - restoration of territorial integrity, and 37% - accessible healthcare. The survey was conducted based on the sampling involving face-to-face interviews, and total of 6,299 people were interviewed. NDI surveys in Georgia are carried out by the Caucasus Research Resource Center and are funded by the Agency for International Development.

Tbilisi. The results of a public opinion poll conducted by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) were released on July 10. NDI has commissioned the Caucasus Research Resource Center to probe into public attitude on various issues. Over 6,000 interviews were held within the research framework. The research encompasses entire Georgia and includes topics such as national and local problems, Georgian-Russian relations, media environment, the idea of constructing Lazika, Georgian democracy, the activities of the special commission set up for clarifying the voters' lists, etc. According to the survey, the top three national concerns are as follows: employment, territorial integrity, and accessible healthcare. Field works of the research were carried out on 4-22 June. The research was carried out in several phases, and the presentation delivers the results of last four phases. During the pre-election period NDI will release another public opinion poll.