Georgian Delegation at the European Week of Regions and Cities
By Mariam Chanishvili
Friday, October 12
Georgian Delegation participated at the European Week of Regions and cities held on October 10 in Brussels.
A great number of presentations were delivered during the event including those by Erik Marx, GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit) Good Local Governance Program team leader in Georgia, Giorgi Kezherashvili, representative of the Ministry for Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia, etc.
It is worth mentioning that a special session “Regional Policy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine: achievements and challenges” was devoted to Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries that have signed the EU Association Agreements.
Current regional development policies, data achievements and common challenges were presented throughout the session. The session was followed by a discussion on common issues, e.g. how regional policy can contribute to economic development and how a partnership with regional and local stakeholders could be further developed.
Giorgi Kezherashvili thanked GIZ and European partners for the opportunity to present various results and Regional Development Program in Georgia.
He also noted that EU approaches on Regional Cohesion and Territorial Development Planning are piloted and progressively applied in Georgia.
“In 2013-2018, the Government of Georgia introduced proactive agenda to advance and approximate its regional and territorial development planning and implementation practices to major approaches, standards and instruments applied in the EU member states under the EU Cohesion Policy. In general, during this period Georgia underwent gradual, yet major shift towards new systemic approaches, by introducing the integrated and territorially tailored development planning,” he said.
Georgian side also presented the working process of developing Decentralization Strategy for 2018-2025, aiming to increase the role, competences, financial and human resources and quality of transparency and accountability of governance at the local level.
Erik Marx highlighted the importance of Georgian delegation’s participation in the event.
“What is really important about this session and the fact that Georgia is attending it, is that it is part of the European Week of Regions and Cities, which is the major gathering of the EU community of practice for regional development, so Georgian participation in it shows that Georgia is actually part of this community of practice which is the great recognition and a good opportunity for networking and showing first results,” Erik Marx said.
The European Week of Regions and Cities is an annual four-day event during which cities and regions showcase their capacity to create growth and jobs, implement European Union cohesion policy, and prove the importance of the local and regional level for good European governance.
The event was created in 2003 when the European Committee of the Regions invited Brussels-based local and regional representations to the European Union to open their doors to visitors simultaneously.
Since September 2017, with the funding of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) GIZ supports an initiative that aims at enhancing the cooperation between Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine on key directions of regional development policy. Within the frames of this initiative, respective responsible agencies of all three countries share experience on planning and implementing regional policies in line with the European standards with each other as well as with EU member and candidate states.
