Our current and recently ended projects in the South Caucasus include the following:
COVID-19 Solidarity Programme
This project involves monitoring visits to prisons and places of detention in Georgia to assess the impact of COVID-19, particularly the impact of measures implemented to tackle the pandemic and prevent its spread to the prison population. In addition, PRI will coordinate, with local NGOs, the provision of needed assistance in terms of facilitating contact with families, psychological counselling and follow up of individuals’ issues related to prison. The project is being funded by the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.
Promoting and Monitoring Reforms in the Penal Sector through the Engagement of Civil Society Organisations
Funded by the European Commission, this project is supporting civil society to monitor the
Georgian government’s commitments to penal reform. The project aims to promote the democratic oversight role of civil society in monitoring and reviewing the Georgian government’s progress against published strategies, action plans, and legislation in line with European best practice. The project is is building local civil society capacity to take on an enhanced monitoring and oversight role, improve policy dialogue and advocacy and raise the public’s awareness on the importance of these functions. PRI helped re-established a CSO network (the Alliance for Penal and Probation Reforms of Georgia) to contribute to the policy advocacy process with the government. The Alliance now has 26 members and is working to ensure the government’s national strategies take account of the interests of offenders and their families.
Read the mid-term evaluation of the project here.
Supporting the improvement of service provision for women
offenders who have experienced violence and discrimination
and their vulnerable children
This project sought to support the improvement of service provision for women prisoners, former prisoners and probationers who have experienced violence, discrimination and stigma. The project, which ran from December 2016 to February 2019, and was funded by the European Commission.
Read a mid-term evaluation and final external evaluation of this project
Reducing torture and ill-treatment through strengthening preventive mechanisms in Armenia and Georgia
This two-year project (July 2016–July 2018) is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and aims to strengthen the legal and normative framework of detention monitoring bodies; build capacity through training and resources, in particular to improve follow-up by government authorities; and, in Armenia, raise public awareness of the problem of torture and the role of monitoring bodies to prevent it. Efforts will focus on the monitoring of prisons, but also on police and administrative detention facilities where oversight by independent monitors is particularly limited. PRI is implementing this project with the Civil Society Institute, Armenia.
Read a mid-term evaluation of this project, which assesses progress against the project’s three planned outcomes.
Increasing oversight over Georgia’s anti-torture commitments and compliance with international standards
Funded by the Open Society Foundation, this two-year project (October 2016–April 2018) aims to increase awareness of and compliance with the revised UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) in Georgia’s prisons, by reviewing legalisation and practice in terms of compliance with the Rules; monitoring the implementation of Georgia’s 2015–16 anti-torture National Action Plan and producing recommendations for a subsequent plan; and producing evaluative instruments and facilitating discussions with stakeholders on different risk factors and contexts that are conducive to ill-treatment.
Read an external evaluation of this project here.
Supporting the improvement of the service provision for women offenders in Georgia who have experienced violence and discrimination
This project (December 2016–February 2017), which is funded by the European Commission, aims to empower women offenders in Georgia who are subjected to violence and discrimination, and their vulnerable children, through improved access to support services.