UNAG launched Civil Georgia (www.civil.ge)in 2001, which soon succeeded in becoming a reliable source of information for large, local and global audiences of readers that are interested to follow the news on Georgia. Civil.ge users receive up-to-the-minute news in English, Russian and Georgian. With over 100,000 monthly visits from all corners of the globe, Civil.ge reaches out to the policy and academic communities in Georgia, as well as in Europe and the U.S., to officials working in EU and international organizations, as well as Tbilisi-based foreign diplomatic corps.
In an increasing trend, Civil.ge news are extensively used by local and international, government and non-government agencies in Georgia, human rights advocates and peace agents. Crisis Group, Transparency International, Public Defender, EUMM, GYLA and other local human rights whistlers are few among those institutions that rely extensively on civil.ge news and archives in their reports and publications, as on a reliable and trusted source (e.g. Crisis Group’s reports ‘Georgia-Russia: Learn To Live Like Neighbors’ – 8 August, 2011; ‘South Ossetia: The Burden of Recognition’ – 7 June, 2010; and ‘Abkhazia: Deepening Dependence’, 26 February, 2010; etc.).
Civil.ge is a source of information for many local media outlets, which use it for double-checking, as well as for looking into archive which dates back from 2001; producers of popular political TV talk shows, among them Maestro TV’s Politmeter hosted by Nino Zhizhilashvili and public TV’s Accents hosted by Eka Kvesitadze, use Civil.ge as a source of information for preparing their programs.
Civil.ge news was quoted in the Independent International Fact - Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia.An extensive use of Civil.Ge’s reports by broad range of organizations and institutions demonstrates not only its reliability, but also exclusiveness of some news reported by Civil.Ge.
Civil Georgia’s main target groups and beneficiaries include, but are not limited to: a. local NGOs and human rights organizations, b. local and international organizations (government, profit and non-profit), which seek for a fact based information about political, social, economic and other developments in Georgia; c. diplomatic missions accredited in Georgia, as well as Georgian diplomatic missions abroad; d. local and international academia that study different issue areas and need to access a chronological track of relevant developments in Georgia (CG provides a news database, archiving data since 2001); e. native Georgians that emigrated and need a reliable source of daily updates on their homeland, f. general public of Georgia and most importantly, Civil Georgia colleagues - g. local and international media entities, which extensively rely on CG news reports, frequently quoting Civil Georgia (New York Times, Reuters, El Pais, Agence France Presse, Deutche Presse-Agenture, etc.).