Baku today is very different from the Baku of my high school years. I remember riding a tram to school. I also remember my high school sharing a building with a vocational school. Nowadays, you will find neither trams nor well-functioning vocational schools in Baku.

I have snapped the picture above in one of Tbilisi’s main streets. To the economist’s eye, however, this picture should be disturbing. While the general observer will see clean and wide sidewalks, beautiful classical-style buildings, and a single pedestrian in this early hour of the day, one also sees two adjacent currency exchange booths (Lombardi, as they are called here).

ISET-PI was contracted by the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) to build the capacity of policymaking agencies and the NGO community in Azerbaijan to develop macroeconomic indices for their own needs.

Supported by the German development organization, GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit), ISET-PI conducted a training program for participants from Georgian government organizations, the national bank, and think tanks.

After the great success in preparing and delivering the Young Bankers training program for ProCredit Bank Georgia, a new training program for senior bank staff was developed and conducted in Tbilisi and Batumi in 2012.