BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 15
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Existing USAID programs have responded rapidly to the challenge of COVID-19, helping Georgia prepare for the economic recovery from the pandemic, said USAID-Georgia Mission Director Peter Wiebler, Trend reports via Georgian media.
"As for the specificities of what we’re doing now, we’ve been able to provide the new emergency assistance to help Georgia cope with the COVID-19 crisis. That emergency assistance has been delivered through the International Federation of the Red Cross as well as the Georgian Red Cross, together with other international organizations here. We are providing humanitarian assistance to help vulnerable citizens all around the country, hoping to ensure that those in need are being provided with the basic humanitarian support, including hygienic products and food," Peter Wiebler said.
According to him, some of USAID's other emergency assistance will help procure much needed equipment and test kits for the National Center for Disease Control.
"We’ve been helping with the supply of lab equipment which will help process test; these are key measures for coping with the pandemic and helping on the recovery. We’re also trying to help the Georgian medical system incorporate more distance medicine types of techniques, which essentially means sharing information through video conferencing," Wiebler said.
As he noted, in March, USAID received a request from the Georgia's Prime Minister’s office to provide technical assistance pertaining to devising the economic recovery plan.
"Within a couple of weeks, we were able to field a team of experts to embed and work with the prime Minister’s office, providing them with information and best advice to lead the economic recovery. We were able to procure and deliver a substantial package of support to the National Food Agency," he said.
"USAID has a strong partnership with Georgia’s National Tourism Agency, and we’ve been working with them actively through our economic security program, to develop concrete and targeted strategies for attracting tourists back to Georgia. We want to help the country get back to welcoming tourists in a safe and responsible way, because the trends here have been so positive, and also because Georgia is so welcoming and has such a great tourism potential," he noted.
As he noted, USAID has been working along with its European Union counterparts to support Georgia’s electoral reform efforts. USAID is also working with the Georgia's Central Election Commission (CEC) in a number of ways.
"We’ve provided our partners at CEC with a sizable amount of equipment designed to harden the electoral commission’s data and cyber systems, so that the integrity of the electoral systems can be as high as possible. The important thing is that work has not stopped, and CEC is dedicated to running the elections with as much integrity and fairness as possible. Our goal is to give Georgian people the needed resources and tools to accomplish their ideas," Weibler said.
According to him, thus far, Georgia’s government and people have handled the situation very well.
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