Trade, employment and poverty reduction – an evidence-based overview

The Embassy of Sweden in Tbilisi provided financial assistance to the Georgian Farmers’ Association (GFA) to support the implementation of its 2020-2024 strategic plan. This evaluation assesses the relevance of the GFA’s strategy objectives and design, as well as its overall implementation, using qualitative and quantitative methods, including stakeholder interviews, focus group discussions, a survey of GFA members and a review of documentary sources.
Findings show that the GFA strategy is adequate and flexibly adapted to respond to new priorities and challenges, such as supporting Georgia’s EU accession process. The GFA met the key performance indicators and contributed to the achievement of various outcomes set out in the strategy. Furthermore, its advocacy work contributed to legislative processes, although it requires stronger evidence-based analysis. The GFA performance is assessed as very positive based on all sources of evidence.
On this basis, the evaluation proposes that the Embassy of Sweden keep supporting the GFA and provides recommendations to the GFA on potential areas for enhancement, to inform the formulation of its new strategic plan.

Inclusive, sustainable and gender equal digitalisation is not only a goal in its
own right, falling under SDG 9c to “significantly increase access to information
and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable
access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020”, it is also a
lever and accelerator for solving development challenges in all other sectors.
It offers new innovation opportunities for poverty reduction. The availability of
data opens up for optimising resources, transitioning to sustainable forms of
energy, circular business models, tracking of supply chains and strengthening
of democratisation processes. Along with climate change, it constitutes one of
the greatest transformative forces today.