On 31 January, USAID launched a program that aims to  support youth and women entrepreneurship in Georgia under the name YES-Georgia, reported georgiatoday.

YES-Georgia supports economic growth and empowers Georgia’s youth and women by encouraging innovation, promoting entrepreneurship, and enhancing youth and women’s employability.  The program provides emerging entrepreneurs and professionals with skills development, business training, mentoring, and access to financial support. Supporting Youth and Women Entrepreneurship in Georgia is an extension of the previous USAID program Youth Entrepreneurial Skills for Advancing Employability and Income Generation in Georgia.  Since 2016, YES-Georgia has supported more than 3,000 young entrepreneurs and professionals, the majority of whom are women.  

The USAID program Supporting Youth and Women Entrepreneurship in Georgia (YES-Georgia) is implemented by the Crystal Fund with the financial support from the American people through USAID and the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative. Additional financial support is provided by JSC MFO Crystal. The program cooperates with the international organization Buzz Women and local consulting company Crystal Consulting LLC. 

The W-GDP Initiative was launched by the White House in February 2019 as the first whole-of-government effort to advance global women’s economic empowerment focused on three pillars: women prospering in the workforce, women succeeding as entrepreneurs, and women enabled in the economy. W-GDP seeks to reach 50 million women in the developing world by 2025 through U.S. government activities, public-private partnerships, and a new, innovative fund, housed and managed by USAID. The W-GDP Fund will mobilize partnerships to leverage more than $260 million from private sources, bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, universities, and foreign governments.