The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission to Georgia (USAID/Georgia) is planning to seek applications from qualified entities to implement the Georgia Information Integrity Program.

This is an advance notice that USAID/Georgia will be posting a request for applications

credit:

(RFA) in the near future.

This Synopsis is issued for the purpose of providing stakeholders an opportunity to review and provide comments on the attached draft Program Description.

If you would like to provide comments, please submit no more than two pages of comments no later than April 13, 2020 via email to mchelidze@usaid.gov.

This Synopsis is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Applications or Proposals (RFA/RFP).

It is not to be construed as a commitment by the U.

S.

Government to issue any solicitation or make an award, nor does it commit the Government to pay for costs incurred in the preparation and submission of any comments.

Any funding proposals submitted in response to this request will not be considered.

Responses to this notice must be received no later than the due date and time stated above in this notice.

All materials submitted will become the property of the U.

S.

Agency for International Development (USAID) and will not be returned.

USAID reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for USAID’s own purposes.

While it is not the intention to make public any response to this Synopsis, proprietary and sensitive information must not be sent.

Responding to this Synopsis will not give an advantage to an organization in any subsequent procurement.

The goal of the program is to support the integrity of the information space and build societal resilience in the face of disinformation and propaganda campaigns.

This program will seek to improve coordination among different actors addressing these issues and to strengthen the capacities to provide more data-driven and impactful approaches.

The activity’s success will rely upon a robust research and learning component, centering around a “Learning Lab” approach, using a platform for innovation in civil society and media, that generates data about the problem and informs evidence-based programmatic interventions and solutions (see “Implementation Approach” below).

The learning aspect of this activity will have the applicant propose opportunities for regional partnerships with neighboring countries experiencing disinformation; drawing on and contributing to the regional community of learning on this issue.

Critical to the activity’s success will be networking and coordinating a broad and diverse set of actors around this problem set to synergize efforts.

The activity will consist of the following objectives:
Objective 1:
Build the Community:
Build a platform for stakeholders to coordinate efforts and maximize impact.

Objective 2:
Strengthen the capacity of local actors to diagnose, track and respond to disinformation; create and disseminate fact-based messages.

Based on prior experience addressing disinformation in Georgia and other countries in the region, preliminary lessons learned have shown that more effective programming will require:
● Data-driven approaches:
to study and provide more concrete understanding of the scope and scale of disinformation including the impact of disinformation on not only attitudes, but also on behavior.

● Better tools and measurements:
to help understand vulnerable audiences; enhance targeting and tailoring communications in ways that resonate with the vulnerable audiences; and develop a common set of indicators and metrics to measure the performance of disinformation efforts.

● Proactive, creative approaches:
to foster how media and civil society can highlight Georgia’s historic democratic values and connect them to its future.

● Networking of actors and efforts:
to increase coordination, collaboration, cooperation:
within and between the CSO sector and media sectors; between CSOs, media, and the government; and between donors to maximize and synergize efforts and to broaden a community of learning.

● Engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders:
to ensure a coalition of stakeholders beyond Tbilisi.

● Greater public understanding:
to enhance public knowledge of what disinformation is and how it works.

● More experimentation and innovation:
to test and conduct applied research and scale-up promising initiatives.

Given that countering disinformation is a relatively new field of research and programming, and as such is highly experimental, USAID will consider activities that employ a “Learning Lab” approach, encourage creativity and experimentation, with a strong research and development component.