Citizen Journalists for Free and Fair Elections in Georgia

It is important to conduct systematic analysis and to synthesize information that can be used by advocacy and electoral observation groups to improve the electoral process. In this project no links were made with advocacy or other groups in Georgia who could use the project’s information to promote electoral reform. Some of its efforts also worked in parallel to other efforts done in the sector.

The project itself was focused on the Georgia parliamentary elections event and the structures created were not used for the remainder of the electoral cycle, notably the 2013 presidential election which was held within the life of this project, and the upcoming 2014 local elections.

The grantee in Georgia did undertake a good internal monitoring effort to track progress of project indicators, but these indicators primarily tracked outputs. This project might have had more significant but these were invisible to the evaluators. Most of the information on higher level outcomes was anecdotal and without more data, it was not possible to evaluate to which extent results were achieved.

The effort was primarily focused on exposing problems in the 2012 Georgia parliamentary elections but any impact beyond this was unlikely. In part, this was intentional as the grantee did not want to further inflame the politicized context by widely disseminating materials that showed violations primarily by one side. But it was also a result of the one-off nature and limited reach of the activities. Enlarging the concept beyond reporting of just violations and embedding the project within the broader electoral process and its democratic meaning could have made this a wider, lasting citizen journalism effort.

The grantee relied heavily on personal contacts to recruit participants, including journalists from the Charter of Ethical Journalists which the grantee had created under an earlier EU project. This was efficient since these people were known to be independent and helped maintain the perception of impartiality. At the same time, this limited the reach of the project to people who were already civically active. There were no links apparent between this effort and other more substantial efforts for citizen journalism, election reporting or observation. The reach of the project could have been extended through better use of social networks beyond the staff’s Facebook pages, and the use of participating media organizations to promote citizen reporting, the website and project purpose.

The project inputs were consistent with the delivery of the activities but not with the intent of developing citizen journalism. Embedding citizen journalism would have required more than a one-time training and payment for verified reports. In this regard, the project in Georgia lacked clarity of purpose and should have conceptualized a fully comprehensive development programme.

The system of using the grantee’s institutional website as a place where concerned persons could have their reports posted was sustainable as long as the grantee in Georgia is in a position to continue to maintain its website. At the time of evaluation, the reports were still posted there and available to read. Having gained the experience of operating this type of a project, the grantee has extended also extended to other projects related to civic education.