By: Sopiko Babalashvili
Sopiko Babalashvili holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from the social and political sciences faculty at the Tbilisi State University. Her professional experience covers the non-governmental sector in terms of project cycle management in the fields of agriculture, rural development, youth empowerment, community work, civil activism. During her 5-years working performance with different NGOs, she had the opportunity to partner with international donor organizations such as USAID, HEKS-EPER, UNDP, FFO, CNFA and strengthen knowledge and skills towards project management, stakeholders' mobilization, community engagement, monitoring and evaluation, proposal writing. Her expertise includes planning, implementing and assessing impact-oriented projects.
Sopiko started her career as a project manager in the project "Farmers' School", funded by the international Swiss organization HEKS-EPER in Kakheti region, Georgia. Sopiko was the responsible for overall planning, implementation and monitoring of the project, which aimed to enhance the livelihood opportunities of smallholders through development of high-quality, market-relevant vocational education and training services in rural areas of Kakheti region.
Sopiko also worked for USAID Agriculture Program in Georgia as an intern in the department of monitoring and evaluation, where she gained considerable knowledge in developing M&E methodology, carrying out monitoring process, data collection, management and analyzing.
As a young professional dedicated to contribute development of sustainable agriculture and food systems and motivated to strengthen capacities of smallholders, specifically women farmers to adapt to climate change, Sopiko promotes agriculture, food systems, climate action, SDGs through her social media channels, sharing knowledge to school students on food systems, food heroes, climate change, healthy diets, entrepreneurship across the food systems.
Currently, she has been working in one of the leading development NGOs in Georgia, CENN (Caucasus Environmental NGOs Network) as a Rural Development Officer and SDGs Analyst. As an officer in the project "Enhancing Climate Resilient Agriculture", her duties includes assistance of the project manager in the programmatic, administrative and financial management of the project, elaboration of work plan and overseeing implementation process, community engagement, communication with stakeholders, fundraising, monitoring and evaluation.
As a SDGs analyst, Sopiko is engaged in desk research of documents relevant for implementation and monitoring of SDGs and successful international practices on institutional set-up and functioning of SDGs multi-stakeholder bodies on national and local levels; Sopiko is very passionate about individual actions in response to the global challenges, including food insecurity, climate change, inequalities and believes that even individual actions can lead to the transformational and impactful challenges.
In her words 'my motivation as a Country Representative is to contribute to the mobilization of public, private and civil sectors around agricultural and food system development, support young professionals to engage in achievement of sustainable agriculture and food security in Georgia'.
Sopiko is dedicated to expand YPARD network in Georgia, promote objectives and values of the organization among a wide range of stakeholders, with the special focus on youth and design and implement impactful initiatives at local level to shape sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Welcome Sopiko! We are happy to start working with you!
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