World Bank approves €35.7 million to improve internet connectivity in 1,000 Georgian villages

A total of 1,000 villages in Georgia will receive better internet connectivity as the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved €35.7 million to support the country’s digital transformation.

The Log-in Georgia Project aims to connect people, enterprises and institutions across rural Georgia to high-quality, affordable broadband internet and promote the use of digital services, the World Bank has announced. 

The World Bank supports Georgia’s goal of harnessing digital technologies to increase its economic competitiveness and thus provide better jobs and opportunities for all its people,” World Bank Regional Director for the South Caucasus Sebastian Molineus said. 

He said the project will help Georgia ‘overcome economic dualism, ensuring that people and enterprises in rural areas have the same access to opportunity as their urban counterparts’. 

It will do so by investing in increased digital connectivity across Georgia’s regions and promoting digital services.This will help accelerate Georgia’s economic development, further cement its position as an innovation hub and investment attractive country, and ensure a resilient recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic”, Molineus concluded.

By increasing the coverage of high-speed broadband internet services in rural settlements, the project will help boost the use of digitally enabled services through training and capacity building programmes across the country. 

It will promote digital financial services and e-commerce, as well as online e-government services, as also help promote remote e-learning and telemedicine.

Nearly 500,000 people, residing in locations currently unserved by high-quality broadband services stand to benefit from deployment of the broadband infrastructure envisaged by the project.  Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

The support of our international partners and donor organisations, including the World Bank, in the implementation of the ongoing reforms and programmes in various sectors of the economy is crucial”, Georgian Economy Minister Natia Turnava said. 

She further noted that the World Bank’s support to the Government of Georgia ‘in the context of the crisis and particularly in the measures taken to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, is especially outstanding’.  

Georgian Finance Minister Ivane Matchavariani also stated that the government continues its ‘successful cooperation with the World Bank in bringing shared prosperity to citizens and businesses across Georgia’.

The project approved today is aimed at narrowing the gap between urban and rural populations in terms of availability of economic and social opportunities, through improving countrywide digital infrastructure and extending access to the internet to all regions of Georgia”, he added. 

The Log-in Georgia Project will be implemented by the non-entrepreneurial, non-commercial legal entity Open Net over a five-year period, with the support of the Communications Commission under the oversight of the Economy Ministry.