Georgian and Armenian ruling parties have been until recently basking in the glory of high GDP growth rates. Armenia’s stellar growth performance of 7.5% in 2017 and Georgia’s respectable 5% are, indeed, worthy of praise. However, do these figures really matter for the objective well-being of the majority of Georgians and Armenians? Second, how does economic growth, as measured by GDP, affect people’s subjective perception of happiness?

Do you happen to have some 1.7 trillion USD to spare? Somewhere between 2 and 10% of the Georgian population suffers from a lack of basic access to drinking water (Global High-level Panel on Water and Peace, 2017; The Global Water Partnership and OECD, 2015). Globally, 1 in 4 people will be affected by shortages of freshwater by the year 2050 (United Nations, 2018).

Gigla Mikautadze, the project manager of ReforMeter, was invited to a business forum dubbed “Bond Market in Georgia” organized by TBC Capital on June 15, 2018. One of the major highlights of the forum was a research paper entitled “Bond Market in Georgia”, which concerned the trends and challenges that TBC Capital presented to the forum attendees.

The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri in May 2018 stood at 3.17 GEL, which is 3.4% lower month-on-month (i.e. compared to April 2018). The Khachapuri Index is actually up by 1.1% year-on-year (compared to May 2017), suggesting a slight uptick in annual inflation. The supply of fresh milk is approaching its seasonal peak, and this peak might be earlier than usual this year because of the early spring.

On May 29th, the ISET’s Salome Gelashvili spoke at the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Tbilisi Implementation Conference hosted by the Parliament of Georgia and held at the Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel from May 28th to 29th. She participated in a panel discussion on data for sustainable development.