Regional Risk-informed Development Workshop in Ambrolauri, Georgia

On October 11th, 2022, the GIDRM with its partner Resilience Solutions Limited conducted a workshop in Ambrolauri, Georgia, to improve the risk-informed development (RID) planning and decision-making process in the four municipalities of the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region. Bringing together officials and local authorities to identify and create region-wide synergies as well as determine future joint action, the workshop aimed at:

Raising awareness of the concept of risk-informed development and its "enabling environment" to integrate risk into development planning processes.
Establishing a common view on existing and expected risks affecting the development of municipalities.
Identifying development programs/processes at the municipal level that should be "risk informed" - to prevent risks from occurring and protect development from future threats or risks.
Identifying required skills, knowledge, and potential interventions to make development planning and decision-making processes more risk informed.

Four sessions encompassing theoretical and practical exchange led to identification of common challenges and recommendations. Lack of localised activities, limited access to funds and technologies were raised as some of the baseline issues preventing municipalities from calculating long-term projections and perspectives of their decisions. The premise of RID and further capacity enhancement of locals were seen as the first steps to establishing an enabling environment for risk-informed decision-making. Besides becoming acquainted with best practices, risk assessments and how to implement the RID components, strengthening sectoral structures was prioritised to enhance careful infrastructure planning for municipalities within the budgetary limits.

This workshop served as a follow up to the workshop held in May 2022 that served as an introductory meeting of the RID for national decision-makers, universities and CSOs. It is evident that Involvement of different sectors and intersectional approaches are necessary to create a broad picture and share responsibilities locally and nationally. As a follow up to both activities held in 2022, a third workshop on RID is envisaged in spring of 2023. The third workshop will bring together all parties from previous events with a wider audience from additional sectors.