The Georgian government is liquidating the Grants Management Agency. As Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists, “the agency is operating in winding-down mode and will close before the end of the year.”
“NGOs are an artificial phenomenon that was artificially created for foreign political interference. When we established the agency, it turned out that this is indeed the case. The sole purpose of an NGO can only be the interference of one state in the internal affairs of another state. That is precisely why NGOs were invented in their time. A century ago, no NGOs existed.
Then they were created and began to be used as the primary tool of foreign interference. We have seen plenty of such examples in Georgia. Accordingly, inventing NGOs and funding such structures on our part would be a wrong step, which is why we made this decision,” the Prime Minister stated.
The ruling Georgian Dream party created the Grants Management Agency in the spring of 2025 “to support civil initiatives.” After parliament passed legislation targeting civil society organizations and media outlets—in particular, the foreign agents law—the authorities announced that they would fund NGOs themselves from the state budget.
Concurrently, Georgian Dream banned the receipt of foreign grants without prior government authorization.
Tamar Zodelava was initially appointed head of the Grants Management Agency; in January 2026, she was transferred to the position of Deputy Minister of Justice.
