The Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) is a Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

-based think-tank, headed by prominent Georgian political scientist Ghia Nodia

Ghia Nodia

Ghia Nodia is a Georgian political analyst who served as the Minister of Education and Science in the Cabinet of Georgia from January 31, 2008 until 10 December 2008....

. Its main areas of research are: conflict prevention and resolution (with particular emphasis on Javakheti region); political parties; media, especially regional media; security studies and civil-military relations; local self-government development in Georgia, religious minority and education.

In addition, numerous educational projects are implemented by CIPDD in the fields of religious education, conflict resolution, political system and party organization and also other fields. Several translated and original publications were prepared and published by publishing division of CIPDD, Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama

Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of...

's " The End of the History and the Last Man" (Georgian trans.) and discussion series "Debates in Caucasus Institute" among them.

Partner-organizations of CIPDD are: OSCE (including Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - ODIHR); CordAid Foundation (Netherlands), Open Society Institute (USA), Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy - NIMD (Netherlands); other western donors and nongovernmental organizations.

Most of the Institute sponsors are Western

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

 governments (like those of the U.S.A., U.K., Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

), Western supranational organizations (NATO), governmental or government funded agencies and programmes (USAID, National Endowment for Democracy

National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

n Institute for International Affairs) and private funds (George Soros

George Soros

George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...

' Open Society Foundation ).