Poti, Georgia was once a vibrant port city, a crucial conduit to the Black Sea and critical to the Georgian economy. Today, however, the city is plagued with a host of pressing community development issues that all but eclipse its former status. Rising unemployment, declining social services, pollution of the Black Sea and the resettlement of refugees from the Abkhazian conflict are only some of the challenges Poti residents face. Furthermore, the recent Georgian Law on Local Governments charges municipal officials in Poti with the fiscal and managerial responsibility for resolving these issues, despite insufficient resources and limited problem-solving abilities.

Partners-Georgia convened cooperative planning sessions in Poti to address issues affecting the hardest hit segments of the population, namely youth and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The Center launched the program, with support from the World Bank, by approaching citizens, local media, IDPs, youth groups, university students, business leaders and elected officials, and asking them to define pressing community needs and then work together in a facilitated process to address those needs. At first, local government leaders expressed skepticism at the utility of cooperative planning, arguing that attempting to reconcile so many individual interests would complicate and even impede the resolution of community concerns. By the same token, citizens expressed a mistrust of local government and were doubtful that local officials would engage in real working partnerships.

In order to defuse this resistance to cooperation, Partners-Georgia conducted a second round of interviews with individual officials to persuade them of the benefits of cooperative planning. The Center asked each official to name a municipal policy they had been unable to implement properly, and then suggested specific ways that the cooperative planning process could use direct citizen involvement to revive the languishing legislation. Partners-Georgia staff also met with community members to explain how the cooperative planning process could provide a forum for citizens to organize and effectively advocate for their needs within local government.

During the cooperative planning sessions, participants broke into dialogue groups to analyze specific issues and make recommendations. Discussions focused on several of the most important issues facing youth and IDPs, including under-representation in local government and in the media, poor job skills, and lack of access to social services. Partners-Georgia staff encouraged the diverse groups to address manageable, concrete issues, which could serve as the basis for larger-scale projects in the future. In this way participants could achieve tangible results with their new skills, and set a precedent for future collaboration. After several dialogue sessions, participants reconvened together to synthesize their ideas, identify resources and develop a cohesive strategy for Poti’s development.

The results of this process exceeded Partners-Georgia’s expectations. First, two new NGOs were established -- Youth Alliance was formed to provide free legal services to those in need, and Free Generation was organized to offer computer education to underprivileged youth and IDPs seeking job training. In addition, an independent newspaper called Youth Generation was established, and written, edited and published by young people, giving them a stronger voice in the community. And, a number of youth leaders from area schools were appointed to serve on the Alternative Local Government for Youth, a group that will consult with local officials on youth-related issues and also organize a yearly educational summer camp for IDP teenagers.

Participants of the cooperative planning program were very satisfied with the process and requested Partners-Georgia’s help with future projects. The group emphasized that the most important lesson they learned was that by working together they could mobilize more financial and human resources and achieve far more in the community than they had thought possible.

Additional Resources
Photograph of Hotel Housing Refugees, Tbilisi, Georgia