USAID/Georgia has the new Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) for Georgia. The new guide to its assistance to Georgia which encompasses the period starting from May 2020 will be active through May 2025. USAID plans to strategically partner with Georgia on its journey to self-reliance, helping advance its Euro-Atlantic integration and strengthen its resilience to malign influence.
As Peter Wiebler, Mission Director of USAID/Georgia told The Checkpoints in a recent interview, USAID’s strategy to counter external malign influences and expand its self-reliance could be countering the misinformation; strengthening Georgia’s energy security, growing economy and building it in the way that it diversifies; modernizing Georgia’s economy, so that it’s not so reliant on certain things like for example agricultural exports to one market or on tourism from primarily one market or from abroad.
“As we’ve seen it during the pandemic, tourism in particularly is vulnerable to pandemic circumstance and as we’ve seen results of this sort of stoppage of external foreign tourism, it really has hurt the tourism – Peter Wiebler told The Checkpoints - There is not the need to move away from tourism but to expand other sources of employment. Lastly, but not the least we are deepening our emphasis on strengthening Georgia’s democratic institutions and processes”.
“Georgia has seen a lot of progress in the last 25-30 years, but thereare still ways to go” – USAID/Georgia Mission Director added.
Peter Wiebler was sworn in as Mission Director of USAID/Georgia in July 2018. Prior to his assignment to Georgia, Wiebler served as the Acting Director of the Office of Budget and Resource Management (BRM) in USAID/Washington.
