SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT Award Period: October 31, 2014 – October 31, 2021 Reporting Period: November 1, 2019 – September 30, 2020 Submitted to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of Cooperative Agreement No. AID-114-A-14-00008 by the East-West Management Institute, Inc. Tamuna Karosanidze, Chief of Party, Tbilisi: [email protected] Ana Drakic, EWMI Program Director: [email protected] #5 Marjanishvili St., Third Floor • Tbilisi 0102 Georgia • Tel (995 0 32) 2202 444 • www.facebook.com/EWMI.ACCESS CONTENTS Background ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Approach ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 Key Activities an Accomplishments ....................................................................................................... 5 Component One: Citizens become more aware of and involved in CSO Activities ................ 5 Component Two: Improving CSO leadership, organizational capacity, and sustainability ..... 19 Component Three: CSO Policy Research, Monitoring, and Influence Increase ....................... 25 Component Four: Centers For Civic Engagement Continue To Provide Space For Public Dialogue ..................................................................................................................................................... 34 Public Outreach ....................................................................................................................................... 38 EWMI ACCESS Annual Report: Nov. 1, 2019 – Sept. 30, 2020 Page 2 of 40 I. BACKGROUND The Advancing CSO Capacities and Engaging Society for Sustainability (ACCESS) Project works to enhance the effectiveness of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Georgia. ACCESS is a 7 year $9,696,947 USD million project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by East West Management Institute (EWMI) and its local partners, the Centre for Training and Consultancy (CTC) and the Civil Development Agency (CiDA). ACCESS builds on the successes of EWMI’s and USAID’s previous work with CSOs in Georgia under the Policy, Advocacy, and Civil Society Development in Georgia (G-PAC) project. ACCESS works to achieve four objectives: a. Citizens more aware of and involved in CSO activities; b. CSO leadership and organizational capacity, as well as sustainability, improved across a range of organizations in and outside Tbilisi; c. CSOs effectively able to monitor and influence key government policies and processes; and d. Local ownership of the CCEs so that they continue to operate as politically neutral gathering spaces for public discourse. ACCESS pursues these four objectives through grants supporting policy research, watchdog, and civic engagement activities by CSOs; technical assistance programming to strengthen CCEs and CSO management and operations; and a wide range of events that deepen dialogue and partnerships between citizens, CSOs, government, businesses, and media. ACCESS prioritizes in particular the expanded inclusion of women, minorities, and youth in its initiatives to ensure that voices from these groups are more fully taken into account in CSO activities and governance processes. By increasing the use of science, technology, and innovation in CSO activities, ACCESS also assists civil society in becoming more effective and efficient in representing the needs of the public. ACCESS began on October 30, 2014 and is scheduled to end on October 31, 2021. Note: This report serves both as ACCESS quarterly report for July-September 2020 and the sixth annual report covering November 1, 2019 – September 30, 2020. The report integrates fourth quarter activities, achievements, and challenges in reporting on ACCESS Year Six progress and activities. EWMI ACCESS Annual Report: Nov. 1, 2019 – Sept. 30, 2020 Page 3 of 40 II. APPROACH ACCESS’ mission is to enhance the effectiveness of CSOs in Georgia by enabling more constituent-connected, organizationally mature, and financially sustainable cadre of CSOs that progress toward managing direct USAID funding to them. To achieve this goal, ACCESS offers integrated support to a geographically diverse and demographically inclusive group of CSOs, with particular attention paid to regional organizations. The integrated support includes grants, peer mentoring, training, individual consultations, special initiatives, and networking opportunities. ACCESS puts special emphasis on supporting CSO engagement with constituents to identify problems and solutions and effectively implement these solutions. It also works with CSOs to strengthen their governance, management, advocacy, and outreach capacities through offering organizational development and private sector engagement opportunities. Under its policy research and advocacy work, ACCESS supports CSOs evidence-based awareness-raising and advocacy initiatives that focus on key issues and policies at the national level. Lastly, ACCESS supports the Network of Civic Engagement Centers (NCCE) to promote democratic dialogue in Georgia’s regions and to develop into a sustainable local organization. In Year Six, ACCESS had to modify some of its activities and develop alternative ones because of COVID-19. The Citizen Outreach and Public Policy and Accountability Grant (PPAG) recipients were not significantly impacted by the crisis; however, their start dates had to be slightly delayed and they had to temporarily move some of their offline activities into an online domain. ACCESS organized individual consultations with all of its grantees on how to adapt to the new reality without compromising their intended objectives. ACCESS also supported ongoing networking among its grantees using online communication tools. In March 2020, ACCESS requested USAID Georgia’s approval to use its targeted Citizen Outreach Grant fund to provide fast and flexible grants, including the in-kind ones, to CSOs and civic activists to take civic action in response to the COVID-19 crisis. After receiving USAID’s approval, ACCESS issued 22 grants to a diverse group of competitively selected recipients who were highly effective in providing critical support to the most impacted and at-risk groups and communities. In July 2020, EWMI ACCESS signed an extension of ACCESS with USAID Georgia, increasing the total estimated award amount by $700,000 and extending ACCESS’ period of performance by six months, to October 31, 2021. The proposed extension builds upon ACCESS’ early success with Rapid Response Grants (RRG) that catalyzed new forms of civic mobilization and provided timely and critical support to the most affected groups and communities in the early weeks and months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Georgia. With the extension, ACCESS will step up its efforts to amplify citizen voices in pandemic responses, bolster emerging local initiatives, and engage civil society groups in addressing medium- and long-term implications of the pandemic in myriad small and large ways. EWMI ACCESS Annual Report: Nov. 1, 2019 – Sept. 30, 2020 Page 4 of 40 ACCESS’ capacity development activities were least affected by the crisis. They were moved online, and ACCESS was able to conduct organizational assessments and provide tailored follow-on assistance to the selected organizations without any disruptions. The self-paced e- learning courses on civil society were particularly well-suited for the lockdown and quarantine periods, offering easily-accessible opportunities to CSOs and civic activists to develop their skills. ACCESS also adapted its stress management program and substituted one of its stress management workshops for CSOs and activists with brief, three-minute videos by an invited specialist on how to manage stress during the COVID-19 crisis. Throughout the year, ACCESS continued actively using the co-creation approach to encourage and support its grantees and partners to develop innovative and successful solutions to their target problems. All of ACCESS’ COGs and PPAGs issued in Year Six were designed through participatory Social Lab discussions. At the time of the start of the COVID-19 crisis, ACCESS had not resumed its cooperation with CiDA. After the outbreak, ACCESS asked CiDA to submit a new work plan that would be adapted to the new challenges and needs and promote partnerships between business and community leaders to coordinate resources during the pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis has had the biggest negative impact on the activities of Network of Centers for Civic Engagement (NCCE). Initially, NCCE had to limit the number of its event participants to 10 people, and later it had to entirely shut down its regional offices. During the shutdown, NCCE organized online discussions on a wide variety of issues related to COVID-19 and provided opportunities to communities in the regions to receive credible information about the virus, state-sponsored programs in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and the response by non-state actors. NCCE also provided government, CSOs, the private sector, and other key stakeholders assistance in disseminating critical information to regional stakeholders and communities. NCCE used its extensive contact databases to disseminate information online and via SMS. III. KEY ACTIVITIES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS This section lays out ACCESS Year Six key activities and accomplishments