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Good practice Imported

REDI - Rural Empowerment through Digital Inclusion

Georgia · Ozurgeti · See the Georgia profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 82% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

An EU-funded project led by Estonia's eGovernance Academy and Poland's Solidarity Fund PL is building public internet access points and rural digital hubs, and training digital-skills trainers, across 200 villages in four of Georgia's least-connected regions.

roughly 200 villages
Villages targeted for digital hubs and skills activities (2024-ongoing)
11 trainers
Georgian digital-skills trainers trained via Estonia study visit (February 2025)
REDI - Rural Empowerment through Digital Inclusion

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
eGovernance Academy (Estonia) & Solidarity Fund PL (Poland)
Period
2024-ongoing
Keywords
rural connectivity, digital literacy, public internet access points, EU cross-border cooperation

Context

REDI (Rural Empowerment through Digital Inclusion) is an EU-funded, cross-border project launched on 1 July 2024 with a kick-off event at Tech Park Ozurgeti. It is implemented by Estonia's eGovernance Academy (eGA) and Poland's Solidarity Fund PL (SFPL) under the Team Europe Initiative for Balanced Territorial Development, targeting citizens, vulnerable groups and small businesses in the Georgian regions of Guria, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, Imereti and Kakheti — areas with sparse rural connectivity.

Activities

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.

Results

The project is still in its early implementation phase; public sources describe planned reach and training activity rather than measured changes in participants' digital skills or usage, and no impact evaluation has yet been published.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — EU-funded under the Team Europe Initiative for Balanced Territorial Development; specific budget not stated in source.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Launched 1 July 2024; train-the-trainer study visit completed February 2025; still in early implementation phase as of source publication.
Staffing & skills
Estonia's eGovernance Academy (eGA) - implementing partner, Poland's Solidarity Fund PL (SFPL) - implementing partner, Local self-governments in the targeted Georgian regions - guideline co-design partners

Conditions for success

  • Train-the-trainer approach: Georgian digital-skills trainers completed a study visit to Estonia to learn from its e-governance and digital-education ecosystem
  • Co-design of digital-engagement and inclusion guidelines with local self-governments, intended to outlast the project itself

Where it fits

Governance type
EU-funded cross-border project via national implementing agencies (Team Europe Initiative for Balanced Territorial Development)
Scale
regional/rural (5 Georgian regions, roughly 200 villages)
Income level
upper-middle-income (Georgia)

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Data sources

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Attachments

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