Considering the significance of a green post-COVID recovery, alongside the importance of maintaining an ecological diverse economy, ISET Policy Institute has spent almost two years developing its Climate Policy Analysis Model. The model, funded by the Swedish International Cooperation Agency (Sida), helps to highlight the climate change adaptation and mitigation agendas, which are ultimately vital for Georgia’s overall economic development and growth.

We were thrilled to see Salome Gelashvili, head of the ISET-PI Agricultural Policy Research Center (APRC), actively participate in a UNDP Georgia online discussion. During the virtual roundtable (entitled Local Economic Development and Business Friendly Environment for Municipalities), a variety of notable international speakers, particularly utilizing Czech expertise, came together to consider business development, combatting the rural-urban divide, and the effect of COVID-19 on the informal sector.

On 29 December 2020, the parliament of Georgia approved the state budget for 2021, which includes allocations of around 18.3 billion GEL. From which the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture (MEPA) will receive 451.6 million (2.5% of the total budget allocation). MEPA will direct 10 mln. GEL towards the Environmental Protection and Agriculture Development Program (2.2% of MEPA’s total budget), with around 389.6 mln. (86.3% of MEPA’s total budget) to be allocated to agricultural development, and approximately 51.9 mln. GEL (11.5%) to be spent on environmental protection.

In a recent blog post, Y. Babych and L. Leruth raised several issues related to public infrastructure management in the city of Tbilisi. They observed that the consequences of poor past management practices were highly visible. But some of these consequences are also less visible or less immediate. Take schooling, for example. If the authorities fail to plan for the expected increase in the city’s population over the next few years and neglect to build an adequate number of kindergartens/pre-schools, the results will be overcrowded, fast-decaying pre-schools, and eventually poor educational outcomes. Similarly, as the number of cars keeps growing, the authorities must plan new roads and enhance their maintenance.

This report highlights the derivation of sector-specific output (revenue), employment, and investment multipliers based on the Input-Output framework for the Georgian economy, which portrays the potential spillover effects of an increase in final demand for the products of a given sector on the whole economy.