R-CSN – Regional Civil Society Network was created at the end of 2012. It comprises around 40 NGOs of all regions of Georgia. Activities of the Network are supported by G-PAC project of East-West Management Institute, funded by the USAID. The facilitator has been CiDa (Civil Development Agency). On April 11, at Courtyard Marriott Hotel, the latter held a presentation of the survey on the crucial issues of the regions.
The representatives of the regional as well as the central media and those of the civil sector were invited. In total, 1405 respondents were surveyed from 10 regions of Georgia. The purpose of the survey conducted by the Regional Civil Society Network (R-CSN) is to identify local problems in regions of Georgia and consolidate capacity of local organizations to resolve these issues.
According to the results of the survey conducted in Georgia in February 2013, the population of the regions proved to be most sensitive towards health issues, ranking second after the problem of unemployment. More than half of the respondents (51.3%) consider health-related issues as most problematic.
Part of the population is unhappy with effectiveness of different programs implemented in healthcare field, including lack of effectiveness of ambulance and lack of access to health services for rural population. As more in-depth investigation showed, the main reason for discontent of the population is high price for services (38.1%) and low qualification of doctors (21%).
Following healthcare, agriculture (33.6%), education (32.7%) and politics (31,7%) were named as problematic fields following healthcare. The second priority for urban population is education (37.3% - urban, 26.1% - rural), and agriculture for rural population (37.7% rural, 30.7% urban). The population believes that the biggest issue in agriculture is lack of market (25%) or lack of market development (23.1%). Agricultural problems somewhat differ between regions. For example, irrigation is most problematic for KvemoKartli region, while Racha-Lechkhumi and KvemoSvaneti have biggest difficulty in selling agricultural produce.
Access to education is the fourth most important problem, and majority of the population named high cost of education (31.4%), quality of secondary education (18.2%) and lack of access to textbooks (17.2%) as issues. It was mentioned that children from poor families have desire to learn a particular specialties, although there is an insufficient network of vocational institutions on local level. Discussion of education-related issues in regions with high concentration of ethnically non-Georgian population raised the issue of language barrier, although, the situation has improved compared to previous years. Local civic organizations are concerned that 4+1 highest education program for ethnical minorities may be annulled in 2013, which will have negative impact on access to highest education for non-Georgian population.
It is interesting that protection of fundamental rights was only identified by one fifth of the respondents (20.7%). Majority (61.6%) believes that the problem is lack of protection of human rights in general. 17.2% thinks that protection of private property is an issue, while 10.5% sees the problem in lack of protection of minorities (ethnical – 5.3%, religious – 3.3%, and sexual 1.9%).
Some of the most important environmental issues are cutting forests (44.3%) and air pollution (18.5%). Production waste (14%) and environmental condition of rivers (12.9%) almost equally concern the population.
Army, religious institutions and police are most trusted by the population. Least trusted are the presidential institute, political parties and regional government. Notably, media has a trust of 2.9 in the scale of 5, which is quite a high indicator. Trust towards civic organizations has increased compared to previous surveys and is 3.5 on average, on a scale of 1-5. 33.2% of the respondents, or one third of the population surveyed believes that the work of NGOs is “very useful.”
Most of the respondents surveyed (60%) believe that economic situation of his/her family will improve in 2013-2014. 33% believe the situation will not change, while 4% thinks it will become worse.