More than 20,000 NGOs registered in Georgia

NGOs registered in Georgia frequently accuse the current and former Prime Ministers of making suppressing statements about them.

They appeal to the officials to refrain from making discrediting statements concerning the NGOs’ activities as such a conduct negatively influences on the state image.

More than 20, 000 NGOs are officially registered in Georgia and this is quite a big figure for the country where population amounts at 3,7 million men.

For one part of the public many NGOs are acceptable if they are focused on solving problems. However, unfortunately, in major cases NGOs are oriented on attracting foreign grants and do not move a figure for the people’s welfare.

It should be noted that the number of NGOs is increasing from year to year with at least 1,500 new entities. Only in 2015, in the course of six months, 752 non-profit legal entities were registered.

Analyst Archil Gamzardia believes that the growing number of NGOs hints on the weakness of statehood.

The analyst thinks that in many cases NGOs are established for making money.

He also says that sometimes former politicians create new NGOs in order to improve their unpopular images.

“Greater part of Georgian NGOs are informal political parties that try to influence public views,” he says.

Popular form is creation of so called Non Governmental Governmental Orgsnization - NGGO . this is the case when the political organization establishes NGO and attracts donors and sponsors to finance it. This was very popular in Georgia during the UNM rule.

Out of the officially registered 20,000 NGOs only up to ten are known for public.

The NGOs stress that the current government members are trying to discredit them when they are doing their best to serve democratic values.

They stress that the negative approach affects the country’s democratic interests and enforces those entities that are against Georgia’s western development.

It should be stated that if the officials really have grounds they must reveal the evidence against the NGOs they criticize . In other cases their words might really damage the NGOs and the state image.

The NGOs should also be fair and assess facts based on their meanings and not whether some foreign fund grants them money for their statements or not.