The Center for Strategic Research and Development of Georgia started working on the topic of consumer rights protection in 2009 and since then it is considered one of the main centers of civil society working in this direction.

The aim of the program is to establish an effective system of consumer rights protection in Georgia. Initially, the team only monitored the food market. Today, as a result of accumulated experience and increased support, the research areas of the organization have expanded to include various consumer products and services.

The activities carried out by the direction team contributed significantly to the adoption of several legislative changes, which ultimately led to an increase in the quality of food safety in the food market. As a result of successful work, the organization has gained the name of one of the leading organizations working on the topic of consumer rights protection.

Main activities of the program:

• Raising public awareness in the direction of user rights
• Government and consumer market monitoring
• Monitoring the consumer market, receiving consumer complaints and responding accordingly
• Advocacy of legislative reforms in the direction of protection of consumer rights

The team for the protection of consumer rights, through www.momxmarebeli.ge and the Facebook page, provides daily information to citizens and also provides consultations on various issues of consumer rights.

In addition, as a result of customer referrals, the organization conducts laboratory testing of various consumer goods, monitors service and/or examines product labels. Information about detected violations is constantly updated on the direction's social channels.

From 2009 to the present, the direction team has conducted a number of interesting information campaigns, which have received significant attention from the public. However, in recent years, in order to activate citizens and increase the quality of their involvement, it is actively planned to use various types of crowdfunding tools in the direction of consumer protection.

Unique Area of Expertise

• Flexible and popular means of disseminating information and interacting with citizens
• Successful experience of involving citizens in activities. Most of the food safety violations were reported by the citizens. Also, for many years, a certain amount of laboratory research has been financed by donations received from users themselves
• www.momxmarebeli.ge has hundreds of thousands of unique visitors every year, and the Facebook page www.facebook.com/momxmarebeli.ge/ had more than 29,630 followers as of October 2022. Their number is steadily increasing.
• Active and stable media coverage. The consumer rights protection program has an average of 100 media coverage per year.
• The direction team has been using crowdfunding mechanisms for years and receiving donations from the population to carry out various researches. However, the potential of this tool is only partially utilized and interesting initiatives or campaigns are planned in this direction in the future.

For more information, visit the website of the program