GG Forum 2020 — SPEAKERS
Resident Senior Program Manager
National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Montenegro
Maka Meshveliani currently heads NDI Montenegro's portfolios on good governance, election integrity, disinformation, and research, with over 15 years of experience in civil society development, women's empowerment, election monitoring, political analysis, and public opinion research. Previously a Senior Fellow with NDI's global Elections Team, she strengthened election monitoring organizations in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Guinea. Maka contributed to disinformation and social media monitoring at NDI. From 2018-2020, she worked with international organizations (UNDP, WHO, NDI) and the private sector (EBRD, PwC) on gender-focused programs in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova. Maka managed UNDP's gender equality program from 2016-2018, focusing on policy development and grassroots organizing for women's empowerment. In her 2007-2016 tenure at NDI Georgia, she led programs on coalition building, issue-based advocacy, and election observation. As the Andi Parhamovich Fellow in Washington DC, she analyzed communication tactics for women's political participation. Maka actively contributes to her communities and initiated a successful crowdfunding campaign in Georgia in 2014. She was a leader in Georgia's women's movement from 2014-2016 and has won multiple awards, including the Chevening scholarship. She holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex (UK) and a BA in Law from Tbilisi State University (Georgia).