More than 20 executives from leading local and international non-governmental organizations in public and health policy formulation have successfully completed training workshop on “Evidence Informed Policy”, on July 31-August 3, 2009 in Ureki, Georgia.The training workshop in Ureki was the first among a series of interventions under the recently launched project “Strengthening Civil Society Capacity to Promote Research Evidence for Policy Development in Georgia” aiming at building the skills of civil society organizations on providing evidence in policy making process.
The project is implemented by Curatio International Foundation with the financial support of Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) and Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF).
The workshop delivered by highly qualified experts covered a wide range of topics such as: Policy formulation, Stage model of policy formulation, Evidence-base policy formulation (by Marina Egutia, Project Manager at Curatio International Foundation) Frames of decision-making (by Bakur Kvashilava, the Dean of Law and Politics school at Georgian Institute of Public Affairs), Media and Policy Advocacy (by Rusudan Rukhadze, Executive Producer of Morning Programs at Georgian Public Broadcasting), Policy and Budget Cycle (by Sophie Lebanidze, Head of Health Care Department at the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs). The course provided participants the deep insight of sound evidence for raising issues on the political agenda, explained how and where the evidence is situated in the policy formulation process, how to effectively involve key players in the policy making etc.
The organizations engaged in the course are:
-Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association (GYLA),
-Transparency International Georgia,
-Association of Young Economists of Georgia (AYEG),
-Economic Policy Research Centre,
-Global Initiative on Psychiatry (GIP),
-Georgian Association for Mental Health (GAMH),
-Mental Health Coalition,
-Scientific Research Institute of Psychiatry,
-UK-Georgia Professional Network,
-The Georgian Association for Psychosocial Aid “Ndoba”,
-Association of People in Need of Special Care (APNSC)
Nino Kiknadze
Project “Law, Media and Healthcare” – coordinator