Georgian Government Will Help Socially Excluded Families

Georgian Government Will Help Socially Excluded Families

09/10/05, “Media News”, - A new program for overcoming poverty in Georgia will start from 2006. The presentation of the state program, which aims to create a database of socially excluded families, took place in the Philarmonia. The members of the organizing committee were from the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the State Agency of Employment.

According to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare Lado Chipashvili, the program will help to identify the most impoverished part of Georgian society which will enable the government to help them. State resources will be used for funding the program. 300 social agents will assess the state socially excluded families find themselves in. These agents were accepted to their position after personal statements and thorough examination. They will meet all the families who applied for being taken up in the database. The number of such families is expected to range up to 153 thousand.

Chipashvili thinks that by the end of March 2006, the agents will have all the information regarding socially excluded families in Georgia. The database will be of help in the implementation of various social projects and especially for those programs that aim to help people living below the poverty level. Around 10% of the Georgian population is regarded to live in what is called ‘extreme poverty’.

Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli, who called the project “the first targeted social program”, attended the presentation as well. He said that 75 million Georgian Lari would be reserved in the 2006 budget to combat poverty. The duration of the program is envisioned for 10 years. Georgian officials hope that the social state of the country will change in this period.