ISET PI became a member of the Georgian Alliance on Agricultural and Rural Development (GAARD) on June 9th. The GAARD was established in 2014 and includes people from the Ministry of Agriculture, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, and independent experts.

The GAARD is a civil society mechanism that aims at:

• Joint policy advocacy and lobbying
• Research and evidence building to feed the relevant policy dialogue, identify policy needs, and create an analytical information database
• Monitoring and evaluation of the implemented policies.

There are 5 different working groups in GAARD: (i) Food Security, (ii) Access to Services, (iii) Access to Finance, (iv) Cooperation and Smallholder farmers, and (v)Environment and Diversity and Land Usage Group.

On June 9, APRC researcher Ia Katsia participated in a GAARD meeting and made a short presentation about ISET PI and APRC. Afterward, she thanked the members of GAARD for approving ISET PI's membership in the Alliance.

The goals of APRC and GAARD coincide in many aspects. We believe that this membership will help us to better promote and communicate our research and other activities. Through the Alliance, APRC can more effectively support the Georgian government in implementing and developing different agricultural policies.