East-West Management Institute

The usaid rule of law (rol) program in Georgia is a five-year, $ 25 million activity funded by the united states agency for international development that began on january 1, 2022. The rol program has three objectives: 1) to strengthen the independence and effectiveness of justice system institutions, including the courts, the Georgian bar association (gba), the legal aid service (las), the public defender's office (pdo), and law faculties; 2) enhancing equal access to justice for all, in particular women, ethnic minorities, and persons with disabilities, among other marginalized groups; and 3) increasing citizen and institutional oversight of justice institutions. Other key elements of the rol program include building the capacity of individual judges throughout Georgia, promoting alternative dispute resolution (adr) mechanisms, and promoting a people-centered approach to legal and judicial reforms. Ewmi is implementing this project in collaboration with the following organizations: the american bar association rule of law initiative (aba/roli), the international legal foundation (ilf), street law, Inc., northwestern university's pritzker school of law, the center for justice innovation (cji), and the european human rights advocacy centre (ehrac). The following are some of the rol program's key activities undertaken in 2022:objective 1: strengthen justice system institutionsthe program established three rule of law practice groups with the goal of strengthening individual judicial independence. The practice groups are focused on the rights of women, the rights of the child, and the right to freedom of expression.supported the capacity of the constitutional court by organizing a webinar for its judges and legal staff on judicial review of constitutional issues: free speech according to the u.s. courts. Organized (with aba/roli) a study trip of for 10 Georgian judges to Washington, d.c. and eugene, Oregon to learn about american approaches to juvenile justice. Assigned three u.s. Judges to mentor their judicial colleagues in batumi, tbilisi, and rustavi.awarded a grant to the gba to strengthen inter-professional cooperation by organizing bench-bar meetings on important legal matters and increase the organizational, operational, and analytical capacities of the thematic committees of the gba.awarded grants to ilia state university and new vision university to advance human rights and legal ethics teaching. Awarded eight grants to other universities to improve legal education in regions outside of tbilisi and to develop textbooks on contract drafting, fundamental human rights, and practical aspects of medical law.provided expert support from northwestern university to strengthen the human rights clinic at the ilia university school of law. In cooperation with street law, the program selected a group of law schools in batumi, kutaisi, and tbilisi to receive resources and customized training on street law programming.objective 2: enhance access to justiceintroduced new protocols to the pdo to increase the public's access to the pdo's services. Supported the labor inspectorate to translate and print guidelines for employers to protect the rights of workers by preventing discrimination in job postings. Awarded eight grants to local csos to conduct strategic litigation and awareness-raising on freedom of expression and media; right to a fair trial; freedom against discrimination; violence against women; rights of the child; rights of persons with disabilities; and rights of marginalized groups. As a result, over 370 beneficiaries received legal aid and 133 court representations were provided and six important precedents were established. Helped improve the case Management system of the las and embedded an ilf expert to provide mentoring to the las leadership and staff lawyers. Awarded a grant to the Georgian association of arbitrators (gaa) to promote arbitration among businesses, improve arbitrators' awareness and adherence to professional standards, and increase knowledge and enthusiasm for arbitration among students and academic institutions. Awarded a grant to the mediators' association of Georgia (mag) to promote the use of mediation and to support court-annexed mediation. Organized a study visit for professionals from mag, gaa, two Georgian judges, and business representatives to explore the best international practices from leading adr practitioners in england and ireland. Objective 3: increase oversight of justice institutionsto strengthen judicial oversight by the pdo, the program embedded a former judge from poland to advise the pdo regarding its mandate to monitor judicial functions. Awarded 10 grants to Georgian csos to monitor the courts and other justice sector institutions, conduct justice sector reform impact assessments, and develop innovative solutions to justice sector challenges. The program piloted a series of new initiatives to introduce the concept of people-centered justice (pcj) in Georgian courts and promote greater engagement between the courts and their local communities, including two pcj seminars for judges and staff from the khashuri regional court and tbilisi city court. In addition to the in-person seminars on pcj, the program organized two interactive webinars for Georgian judges and court managers, co-delivered by cji. The program also arranged for eight Georgian judges to attend the international association for court administration (iaca) conference in helsinki, finland, which was themed "people-centered justice in the new normal. "in order to extend its impact beyond tbilisi, the program launched a rule of law hub in batumi. One of the batumi hub's activities was to train law student to provide legal advice in the neighboring adjara region. Through these visits, 400 citizens learned about their rights and the free legal services available from las. At the end of the year, the program launched its second rule of law hub, in kutaisi, and conducted meetings with the key stakeholders from the courts, the las, the gba, and local csos.

The civil society strengthening activity (cssa) supports the capacity strengthening of ugandan civil society organizations (csos) to influence and contribute to improved development outcomes in four thematic areas: 1) health, with particular attention paid to achieving the country's hiv/aids reduction goals; 2) education, youth, and child development; 3) agriculture and food security; and 4) democracy, rights, and governance. To achieve its aim, cssa implements activities under three components: (i) strengthen the advocacy capacity of csos to influence national and local development; (ii) improve the organizational capacity of advocacy and service delivery- oriented csos to sustainably fulfil their stated missions; and (iii) promote a more supporting enabling environment that sustains a vibrant civil society. Cssa's target direct and indirect beneficiaries including umbrella and individual csos, women, youth, vulnerable populations, people living with hiv/aids (plwha), and other underserved communities. Cssa's priority geographic areas include gulu, kaabong, kotido, lamwo, lira, masindi, mbarara, moroto, omoro, nwoya, and rubirizi districts.by the end of 2022, cssa awarded grants to 23 leading csos and cso networks in uganda to undertake cso advocacy initiatives that engage multiple stakeholders including government actors, media and the private sector, and advocate for improvements in policy. Examples of the cssa-supported advocacy initiatives include the following: (a) members of the parliamentary health committee pledge their support to budget allocation to support maternal and new-born health in health facilities; and 13 health facilities integrated the respectful maternal care (rmc) approach. (b) the government committed to finance the provision of family planning commodities in fiscal year 2022/23. A network of 35 csos were equipped with knowledge on public finance Management, and practical skills of budget analysis, so that the csos meaningfully influence public policy debate. (c) the the ministry of lands' department in charge of community land associations (clas) mapped out and validated the formation of clas to be responsible for negotiating with investors such as mining companies on behalf of the communities. The formalization of communal land ownership by the pastoral communities provides them with the security and legal basis to negotiate for benefits that could accrue from their land. Cssa provided a wide range of capacity building assistance that contributed to improve the advocacy and organizational capacity of csos and cso networks. These cssa grantees put in place human resource Management systems, monitoring and evaluation systems with databases, strategic plans, communication strategies, and financial Management systems. These systems are enabling the grantees to upgrade or revise existing organizational competencies, while at the same time cultivating new competences that strengthen these csos and cso networks' resilience and sustainability. This work also contributes to improve csos public image and strengthen citizens' trust in and engagement with csos.as csos in uganda remain vulnerable to arbitrary regulatory action from the ngo bureau and other state authorities, cssa assessed csos on their legal regulatory and digital security compliance, and offered support to these csos on improving the compliance in the two areas. Cssa contributed to improved collaboration between csos and government through regional dialogue among the ngo bureau's executive director, local government officials, and csos. The ngo bureau committed to rectify a number of issues affecting csos, for instant, removing some csos from the non-compliant csos list, thus removing the suspension of these csos. Cssa's guide leadership program led to remarkable improvements of the leadership capacity of 40 guide fellows.

Citizen engagement for accountability activity (ceaa) is working on strengthening a culture of civic engagement in zimbabwe by promoting greater and more effective citizen participation in governance processes at multiple levels with an eye to improved, citizen-driven development. Ceaa works with and through local organizations' initiatives and seeks unique methods and innovative pathways and partnerships to achieve this purpose. The objectives of this activity are to: (i) activate citizen agency for accountability; (ii) strengthen women's leadership and inclusion; and (iii) enhance youth empowerment and positive engagement. Under objective 1: activate citizen agency for accountability, ewmi awarded three partnership for development (pfd) grants to three cso consortia for their multi-year issue-based initiatives focused on citizens' priority issues and locally-driven solutions. The initiatives also promote the economic emancipation of disadvantaged groups and advance access to justice. In 2022, the three pfd grantees have gone through the organizational capacity assessments (oca) which resulted in individual capacity development action (cda) plans for the grantees. The consultants that participated in a the five-day ceaa consulting for consultants (cfcs) academy, held in february 2022 and delivered by ewmi resource partner common ground consulting (cgc). Rana labs, another ewmi resource partner has completed the ict rapid assessment among ewmi partners and grantees, which informed the design of the face-to-face training session on content creation using smartphones, held in july 2022. An analysis across facebook, instagram, and twitter for all the partners/grantees who attended the digital media workshop revealed the extent of the impact of the training on partners' social media activities. It was noted that sharing professionally produced content drastically increased (400%) the reach and audience engagement. Ewmi also facilitated 22 social labs sessions for ceaa implementing partners and grantees. A total of 165 representatives from three pfd grantees (objective 1), four women lead grantees (objective 2), and five youth empowerment grantees (objective 3) participated in the social lab sessions before finalizing their project proposals leading to the signing of grant agreements. The ceaa undertakes social labs at the design stage of project proposals to enhance the quality of the proposed interventions through improving problem identification, working more collaboratively with relevant and interested stakeholders and proposing locally driven innovative solutions to identified problems. Ceaa's rapid response grantees awarded in 2021, continued to contribute to csos collective efforts to enhance citizen's awareness levels on the pvo amendment bill. Finally, ewmi recruited and trained a total of 262 (out of the targeted 300) community rights resource persons (crrps) in targeted communities that serve as the first point of contact for citizens in addressing questions and concerns about their rights. The crrps have to date identified and submitted 21 advocacy issues to duty bearers. Under objective 2: strengthen women's leadership and inclusion, ceaa facilitated gender equality and social inclusion (gesi) training events with all implementing partners and grantees. In 2022, a total 68 partners and grantees' representatives received training on how to mainstream gesi perspective throughout their projects. Ewmi awarded four women lead grants (wlgs), aimed at increasing women and girls' agency, participation, and access to opportunities and resources to contribute meaningfully to community development, social inclusion-related conversations as well as improve their livelihoods. For example, one of the ceaa grantees, trained and provided detergent making starter kits to 291 women, including 24 women with disabilities. The starter kits helped the young women to start their own detergent-making business. This intervention has already equipped young women with skills and knowledge that enable them to have better financial standing and improved livelihoods. The grantees also implemented various capacity-strengthening initiatives to capacitate duty bearers with knowledge, tools, and skills to improve service delivery within communities. The initiatives included the development, update, and operationalization of relevant policies. For example, one of the ceaa grantees worked with local authorities to develop a gender policy for rural district councils (rdcs). Subsequently, the grantee will develop gender action plans to embrace equal opportunities and provide adequate resources to ensure women's full and active participation. Similar to the pfd grantees, all four wlgs have gone through the oca process and developed cda plans with specific action items, timeframes, clear benchmark and targets, individual responsibilities, and cda needs to achieve the desired results. Finally, ewmi has experienced a late start with the inception of its ceaa women in leadership program (wilp) and has been able to obtain mous for 11 districts out of the 15 districts during the reporting period. Ewmi has developed the selection criteria and plan for the aspiring women leaders in the operating districts. Ewmi will select 50 women per district and will consider women with no leadership experience but willing to take leadership positions as a critical part of the broader selection criteria. Under objective 3: enhance youth empowerment and positive engagement ewmi awarded five youth empowerment grants (yegs), focused on increasing the participation of young men and women in the decision-making processes at all levels. Similar to the pfd and wl grantees, all five yegs have gone through the oca process and developed cda plans. Finally, ewmi has identified 38 outstanding youth community leaders (ycls) that participated in a three-week training which prepared them for working in their own communities. During 2022, ycls from 10 different districts delivered sessions on youth leadership, civic rights and the constitution, life skills, gender-based violence (gbv), livelihoods, entrepreneurship, advocacy and conflict Management to more than 5,000 young people. Ycls have also reached out to 612 youth champions through cascade training in their respective districts with an expectation that the youths would engage more in developmental activities.

Georgia civil society engagement program expense $2,339,197.78, including grants of $1,518,007.79.kyrgyz rol and anti-corruption expense $1,719,289.13, including grants of $418,579.53.uzbekistan jssa expense $1,444,036.39, including grants of $240,820.39.sesa (azerbaijan) expense $1,416,708.38, including grants of $252,138.macedonia ace expense $1,240,734.76, program revenue $1,433,921.71, including grants of $21,915.99. Access to info in cambodia expense $549,554.41, including grants of $279,581.19.albania backlog reduction expense $448,035.97.labor rights in cambodia - solidarity center expense $417,597.95, including grants of $209,772.56.luminate expense $328,193.37, including grants of $248,611.righttrac expense $208,718.54, including grants of $155,211.42.internet monitoring and action project expense $207,170.76, including grants of $154,825.57.asean parliamentary - civic partnership expense $203,540.53, including grants of $130,973.85.p4j- usaid expense $167,712.2, including grants of $40,453.48.luminate ids expense $163,119.27, including grants of $107,613.49.promoting religious freedom expense $153,889.94, including grants of $104,476.55.land Management information system myanmar expense $89,743.08, program revenue $113,172.15, including grants of $10,543.86. Strengthening inclusive open data systems expense $78,201.03, including grants of $40,377.44.odi - osf 2021 grant expense $67,813.17, including grants of $24,509.84.promoting dem & freedo in cambodia expense $56,560.79, including grants of $51,613.78.croatia court excellence expense $54,879.35.mykty aimak (dpi sub kyrgyz) expense $54,108.82.bolstering hr and access to justice expense $51,744.42, including grants of $48,959.94.justice acad curriculum in armenia expense $44,762.26, including grants of $20,000.strengthening media integrity standards in albania expense $30,279.05, including grants of $20,490.52.osf institutional support expense $25,932.75, including grants of $21,389.93.freedom of expression in malaysia expense $24,618.07, including grants of $20,000.georgia civil society engagement (slovakaid) expense $22,042.25. New america ptp expense $18,827.22.partner legacy support program (plsp) expense $13,980, including grants of $13,980. Prolog Georgia (usaid) expense $13,201.57, including grants of -$12455.96. Women peacekeeping cambodia expense $12,206.39, program revenue $15,171.32. Wwf mekong expense $11,635.26, program revenue $11,525.44.kosovo initiative for open and good governance expense $9,220.60, including grants of $5,390.16.nonprofit employment data project (mott) 2022 expense $4,853.82. Global data barometer expense $4,018.75, including grants of $4,000. Eu nsa recoft expense $2,725.64, including grants of $2,032.65. Harnessing data for dem dev s se asia (idrc) expense $2,111.96. Small grants expense $1,941.5, including grants of $1,941.5. Odi-storytelling platform women leaders (spider) expense $581.64. Bolstering hr justice cambodia expense $319.32.access - Georgia (usaid) expense $72.83.cambodia civil society strengthening project expense -$5,253.06, including grants of -$5,565.47.