Project duration

10-month long project (sep2021-june2022)

Introduction & Overview

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged governments worldwide to respond urgently to control the spread of this dangerous disease but also to mitigate its impact on health, survival, and other dimensions of individual and social well-being. This pandemic also occurred at a time of unprecedented access to information and evidence globally. With almost all jurisdictions facing a similar crisis with similar access to knowledge and evidence what could explain the large differences observed? The study team has identified a conceptual framework that identifies Institutions, Politics, organizations of the “public health response system” within the larger health system, and Governance processes – abbreviated as IPOG — accompanying decision-making about response actions and implementation as an important set of factors driving more and less effective government response.

Project Objectives

This study aims to evaluate the influence of institutional, political, organizational, and governance (IPOG) factors on response planning and implementation against the COVID19 outbreak in Georgia. The Global Health Security Index (GHSI) published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 took a purely technical view of evaluating the Government’s pandemic preparedness and had limited predictive power, and the actual effectiveness of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic diverged from GHSI assessments. Thus, the only technical focus seems insufficient to predict government preparedness and response effectiveness. Therefore, this paper explores which other factors may be necessary to predict the Government’s preparedness for pandemic threats.

Organizations Involved

CIF, The World Bank, The University of British Columbia, Canada