UNFPA Turkey and South Caucasus

Helping Georgia to Collect and Assess Data for Development

What's the Situation ?

Georgia's population has changed considerably since its Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the years which followed independence, an economic crisis, civil war and other armed conflicts led to the displacement of around 300,000 people. Many people experienced new poverty and unemployment and the gaps widened between rich and poor.

New freedom to travel combined with poverty and unemployment at home have led many people to leave the country to look for work and Georgia's population decreased from 5.4 million in 1991 to 4.4 million in 2003. The birth rate has also dropped dramatically, falling by 37 pre cent since 1990.

It is clear that growing poverty, unemployment, limited access to basic social services, low income and its unequal distribution have had a clear direct impact on population dynamics in Georgia.

As a result, Georgia faces a problem of depopulation and ageing and this, together with a lack of population policies, poor statistical systems and weak institutional capacities could threaten its sustainable development.

In order to best formulate policies to deal with the changes in its population, the government of Georgia needs to develop comprehensive population policies. It also needs to strengthen its statistical systems and ensure the availability of data disaggregated by gender, age and geography.

What is UNFPA doing to help ?

UNFPA has supported a wide variety of initiatives on population and development in Georgia since 1993. For details of individual programmes currently underway in Georgia, click here

A number of recent activities have specifically supported the collection of data and the establishment of indicator systems :

1. UNFPA helped with the Republic of Georgia's first national census in 2002

2. Surveys on women's reproductive health were carried out in 1999 and 2005

3. A survey specifically on adolescent reproductive health (2002)

4. A survey specifically on Male Reproductive Health (2005)

5. UNFPA has assisted with a number of other important research projects and publications:

Statistical-Demographic Dictionary (2005)
Population Development Indictors, Georgia, 2000
A Demographic Overview of Georgia
Statistical yearbooks (2001, 2002, 2003)

Despite the progress made with these initiatives, it is clear that more support is needed to develop Georgia's systems for gathering and analyzing national statistics, and to encourage policy dialogue about the effects of depopulation and ageing on development and poverty.

In its current programme for Georgia, UNFPA aims to help the Government further strengthen its systems and tools for policymaking.

UNFPA plans to assist in a number of ways:

By holding advocacy and awareness-raising activities which are targeted at policy makers and the media. These activities will put special emphasis on the key indicators of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and will aim to ensure that these indicators are integrated into plans for national development agenda and resource allocation
By providing technical support to statistical departments at a local level across the country.
By helping institutes to build their capacity for collecting and analyzing data.
By supporting the development of ways to collect and analyze data which is disaggregated according to gender and age
By supporting the introduction of new national health monitoring systems including Dev.Info: a database software introduced by the United Nations Country Team in Georgia to monitor implementation of MDGs and the national poverty reduction strategy as well as any other national development processes.

Current UNFPA projects in Georgia:

Advocating for the Implementation of key RH policies in Georgia

Helping the Government to assess Reproductive Health in Georgia

Improving Reproductive Health Information and Services in Georgia

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