Worldwide, cash transfer programs are used to fight poverty. Developing countries typically spend between 1% and 2% of GDP on cash transfers (“Cash Transfers: a Literature Review”, DFID Policy Division, 2011). International donors also invest substantially into such programs.

On February 4th, ISET hosted politician and development expert Ad Melkert, who gave a presentation titled "Global Economic Governance: Past or Future?". At the beginning of the presentation, he talked about the post-WWI and WWII periods and the establishment of international organizations like the ILO, UN, IMF, WB, ECB, OECD, etc. He called these periods the “Promising Past”.

Family Farming is the predominant form of agriculture. It represents the main source of income in rural areas and produces majority of agricultural products in Georgia.

Some weeks ago, I was invited by a development bank to the Hotel Eden in Kvareli, Kakheti, where we discussed Georgia’s possibilities to develop economically. When we talked about the potential of the manufacturing sector, one of the attending bank employees said: “The problem is that Georgia does not have Rudolf Diesel and Nikolaus Otto.”

Recently, one of the authors of this article was crossing a street with a crowd of people at green pedestrian light close to Marjanishvili metro station, when a Mercedes was accelerating and heading towards the people, ignoring the red light, making the crowd splash in all directions. A police car was standing nearby, doing nothing.