REDI - Rural Empowerment through Digital Inclusion

Launched on 1 July 2024 with a kick-off event at Tech Park Ozurgeti, REDI (Rural Empowerment through Digital Inclusion) is an EU-funded, cross-border project implemented by Estonia's eGovernance Academy (eGA) and Poland's Solidarity Fund PL (SFPL) under the Team Europe Initiative for Balanced Territorial Development. It targets citizens, vulnerable groups and small businesses in Guria, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, Imereti and Kakheti - Georgian regions with sparse rural connectivity.
Activities include establishing public internet access points and digital rural hubs and advancing digital skills across roughly 200 villages, alongside a train-the-trainer strand: in February 2025 eleven Georgian digital-skills trainers completed a study visit to Estonia to learn from its e-governance and digital-education ecosystem. The project also works with local self-governments to design and test digital-engagement and inclusion guidelines intended to outlast the project itself.
REDI is still in its early implementation phase, and public sources describe planned reach and training activity rather than measured changes in participants' digital skills or usage; no impact evaluation has yet been published, and it is too soon to judge whether the local-government guidelines will be sustained after EU funding ends. It is included here as a well-documented, actively monitored rural-connectivity effort rather than a proven-impact case.

Read the full analysis: https://eu4georgia.eu/kick-off-of-the-new-eu-funded-project-redi-rural-empowerment-through-digital-inclusion/