Local Impact of the EU-funded Regional Project More Influence of Youth on the Local Environmental Agenda in Georgia and Ukraine

The EU-funded Regional Project More Influence of Youth on the Local Environmental Agenda in Georgia and Ukraine, implemented by Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility (EaP) Fellows, completed its activities in Georgia. From January through September 2020, the regional team implemented research, educational, civic engagement, community outreach and awareness-raising activities. The project engaged more than 120 young people in the Georgian cities of Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Batumi, and the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Lviv and Krivyi Rig.

The project aimed to involve young people in monitoring municipality budget execution and program implementation, improve the advocacy capacity and skills of young activists, raise public awareness of local environmental issues, and promote youth-led initiatives and campaigns. The project engaged with a number of local researchers, trainers and experts, who shared their experience and expertise with the project beneficiaries.

The project engaged more than 60 young people in Georgia. Through a range of mechanisms, such as research, online webinars, social media campaigns, collaborative round-tables and environmental campaigns, the project managed to raise the awareness of youth in respect of environmental issues at the local level, elaborate a budget monitoring and policy research paper on environmental agenda in all target municipalities, and enhanced dialogue between youth and the local authorities through collaborative roundtables. As a result, the participants were able to develop environmental initiatives and organize environmental campaigns. Youth empowerment was achieved through a communication platform for sharing, planning and implementing the initiatives of project beneficiaries.

The project was implemented in two phases. The first phase resulted in the implementation of municipality and budget monitoring activities related to local environmental priorities in the six target cities, as well as the development of a policy paper with a list of recommendations. The second phase focused on online training sessions and webinars (e.g. a 2-week summer school: To be or not to be ECO-logical, regional webinars, the launch of a high-profile regional project). The Georgian participants were actively involved in a social media campaign #beecological, promoting eco-friendly behavior within their communities. The project conducted two round-table meetings in Kutaisi and Batumi, and two clean-up/ greenery campaigns in Georgia, including a maple-tree planting activity at Batumi Central Park.