On October 8, ISET hosted Andreja Marusic, the World Bank’s Global Lead for Business Environment. Ms. Marusic delivered a presentation “Doing Business and Beyond”. The presentation covered a general overview and current international practices in business environment reforms as well as the important systemic issues of moving from ad-hoc business environment reforms (such as the Doing Business indicators centric reforms) to a more sustainable approach, including a focus on predictability, transparency, public consultation, and Regulatory Impact Assessment.

The objective of this activity is to design, develop and implement an operational the Georgian Reform Progress Tracking System (GRPTS) that informs grant beneficiaries on how new reform efforts of the Georgian government have progressed against their intended objectives and continue to improve development outcomes.

When offered the ISET director job back in March 2007, I did not think twice. Everything I’ve read about Georgia until then was incredibly positive. Livable, hospitable, beautiful, corruption-free, etc., etc. The latter part sounded particularly promising given that during my last days in Moscow (I lived and worked in Moscow from 1993 till 2007) I had my brand new BMW motorbike stolen in broad daylight by a local police officer (sic!) who knew that I am about to leave the country and probably thought that there would be no use for motorbikes on Georgia’s terrible roads.

When Georgia ran into a conflict with its northern neighbor in 2008, it experienced considerable solidarity on part of its main Western ally. The United States supplied military transporters to fly back Georgian troops from Afghanistan, which was correctly understood by the Russians as a warning that the US would not allow Georgia to fall.

APRC conducted a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) on insurance reform in Georgia and provided recommendations on policy options for developing a sustainable agricultural insurance market in the country.