Capacity Building Fund, Phase II

Soon after the Rose Revolution in 2003, the UNDP Country Office in Georgia initiated the Governance Reform Programme (GRP) to help the Georgian Government with a series of major reforms.

The Programme consisted of two main components. The first was to assist the Government in administering salary supplements and anti-corruption actions through the Development and Reform Fund under the President of Georgia – Salary Supplement Fund (SSF). The second targeted institution and capacity building activities through policy advice and technical assistance – Capacity Building Fund (CBF).

The Salary Supplement Fund successfully completed its mandate by 2005 and, since then, the primary focus of the Programme has been made on the Capacity Building Fund.

By the end of 2007, the fourteen key agencies of the public administration system managed to implement up to 20 successful initiatives with funding received through the CBF. The list of the Programme achievements includes:

• two draft laws and nine draft normative documents;
• improved IT environment, such as computers and other hardware, local area networks (LAN), virtual parallel networks (VPN), databases, information management systems, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and corporate websites, at the twelve agencies;  
• specialized training for up to 450 public servants; 
• thorough revision of the registered normative acts.

At the request of the Georgian Government and given the demonstrated interest from the donors, the initially planned 3-year (2004-2006) Programme has been extended over 2007.

In July 2007 UNDP conducted an independent evaluation of the Capacity Building Fund to assess the past initiatives and introduce a new strategy. Based on the recommendations of the evaluator, UNDP has taken a decision to launch a second phase of the programme.

The Phase II project initiatives are based on strategic documents of the benefiting public agencies and have bona fide senior management ownership via a demand-driven process. Furthermore, they have high level influences and urgency to act and are oriented on sustainable impact. They clearly identify the risks and possible mitigation measures and propose evaluation indicators and performance tracking systems.

By the end of 2009, Capacity Building Fund has implemented the following initiatives:

• Revision of Normative Regulations by the Office of the State Minister on Reforms Coordination Issues/Development and Reform Fund under the President of Georgia;
• Capacity Building of the Foreign Trade and International Economic Relations Department of the Ministry of Economic Development
• Capacity Building of the Constitutional Court of Georgia;
• Improved Skills for Successful General Education Decentralization Reform by the Ministry of Education and Science;
• Introduction and Institutionalization of Evidence-Based Policy Making Cycle at the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs;
• Establishment of the Functional Policy Analysis Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture.