Within the framework of the project “Inclusive Rural Development and Sustainable Agriculture”, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations implementied agriculture and rural development activities in two target municipalities in Georgia: Martvili Municipality (Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti) and Kaspi Municipality (Shida Kartli). The overall objective of the project was to enhance the competitiveness of the agricultural sector, increase food production, and reduce rural poverty, with a particular focus on addressing inequality, through support to the effective implementation of Georgia’s Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy for 2021–2027. In both municipalities, communities were clustered based on similar socio-economic and natural conditions and jointly developed Community Development Action Plans (CDAPs) to define priority areas, investment needs, and capacity-building interventions for local agricultural and rural development.
The gender-responsive and socially inclusive situation analysis (baseline assessment study) of the two selected municipalities had twofold objectives. The first objective was to provide necessary qualitative and quantitative data for analyses on technical evidence of the status quo at project start (Baseline indicator) to support measurement of the progress over the project duration. The second objective was to provide an analysis of the agricultural and rural development sector, including main value chains and related communities, active producers’ groups and other formal/informal groups (cooperatives, networks, associations, etc.), as well as youth and women groups availability and quality of the extension services, post-harvest infrastructure, including processing and marketing infrastructure.
Within the assignment, DEPA Consulting conducted desk research and qualitative fieldwork, including key informant interviews with local government representatives, information and consultation center representatives, women and youth-owned Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in agriculture and related rural sectors, as well as cooperatives, associations, and informal groups in the target municipalities. In addition, five focus group discussions were held in each municipality with women and men from agricultural and non-agricultural sectors and with youth. The qualitative component was complemented by an extensive face-to-face household survey covering more than 370 households, with an average interview duration of over 30 minutes.