It is with great sadness that ISET announces an enormous loss to the institution – Mr. Roy Southworth, former Chairman and Chairman Emeritus of the ISET Governing Board, passed away on July 23. He was a most dedicated friend of the broader ISET community, an inspiring development professional, a highly generous contributor, and a brave man with a big heart.

On May 3, the US-based World Resource Initiative (WRI) published ‘How to Enable Electric Bus Adoption In Cities Worldwide’, which examines the process of adopting e-buses in sixteen case study cities. Tbilisi City Hall took the first couple of steps necessary to introduce the first electric bus in 2018 and is expected to scale up the number to 200 from 2020.

In the last two weeks, the lari depreciated, once again, against the US dollar. Georgian currency lost about eight tetri against its American counterpart, causing quite a stir in the media, among political groups and economic experts. While government authorities claimed that the recent developments are short-term fluctuations driven by negative expectations, Turkish lira depreciation, dollar’s global strengthening, and are therefore not connected to the fundamentals of the Georgian economy, the members of the opposition were quick to blame incompetent fiscal and monetary policy.

Although Georgia has made significant strides on its developmental path over the last decade, and its ambitions to fully join Western bodies such as NATO and the European Union no longer seem a far-fetched dream, there are sectors of society that have not benefited from the full attention and aid given to other areas.

Windbreaks have a significant positive impact on the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. While the positive impacts of windbreaks have been acknowledged by various stakeholders, due to Georgia’s poor socio-economic conditions, most existing windbreaks have been destroyed and require restoration.