On December 13, Ellie Martus, a co-fund fellow at the University of Warwick, visited ISET to talk about environmental state capacity in Georgia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. She presented an overview of her research, under the framework of which she is going to explore the capacity of Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia to design, implement and enforce environmental policies.

According to a nationally representative sample of 307 Georgians interviewed in early November 2018, the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) dropped by 4 index points, from -18 in October to -22 in November. A similar pattern was observed in both sub-indices: the Present Situation Index went down by 4.7 (from -22.6 to -27.3), and the Expectations Index went down by 3.2 index points (from -13.4 to -16.6) compared to October.

On December 10-11, ISET’s APRC team organized a comprehensive stakeholder dialogue to discuss the interim results of the RIA on draft Law on Windbreaks. The two-day workshop gathered representatives of the Agrarian Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, municipalities, the private sector (principally in the form of farmers), international donors (IFAD, GIZ), and various NGOs.

Geostat recently updated its preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the first and second quarters of 2018. The Q1 and Q2 GDP growth estimates were revised downward to 5.2% and 5.6%, respectively. The third quarter estimates so far remained unchanged.

On December 6-7, ISET’s Pati Mamardashvili traveled to the UK to hold a presentation at the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University.