EWMI - East West Management Institute (Georgia)

EWMI, an independent not-for-profit, was founded in 1988 to meet the challenge of crafting functioning democratic systems in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe then transitioning away from communist and socialist models of governance. Today, EWMI’s reach is global, with over 100 staff in its US headquarters and 10 country offices. The East-West Management Institute is a left-leaning nonprofit international aid and advocacy organization located in New York City that is partially funded by several notable left leaning grantmaking groups. 

East-West Management Institute’s (EWMI) mission is to strengthen democratic societies by bringing together government, civil society, and the private sector to build accountable, capable and transparent institutions, focusing primarily on promoting the rule of law and strengthening civil society.

Th East-West Management Institute was founded to support the developing governments of former states of the dissolving Soviet bloc in central and eastern Europe. The organization states that its work began a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and was founded with the intent of helping states transition to post-Soviet life. The work of the Institute focuses on policy creation in European countries that supports government administration, court systems, economic development, and technical support. The institute also engages in advocacy programs to push for certain policies among citizens and encourage citizens to participate in the government. While most of the work conducted by the Institute still focusses on central and eastern Europe, it has expanded to conduct much of the same type of work in other countries in other parts of the world.

The East West Management Institute operates under four main areas of expertise that its programs fall under. These include the Rule of Law, supporting judicial systems; Economic Development, which supports infrastructure projects; Civil Society, which includes advocacy work around cultural issues; and Environment, which support environmentalist policies in target nations.