Georgia has a number of laws and regulations governing water resources, dating back to the late nineties and partially amended after 2003. Changes, however, have not always followed a clear and coherent strategy. As a result, in the words of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the current legislation is an “unworkable and fragmented system”.

After the Rose Revolution, in the name of of economic growth, the Georgian government set aside environmental issues and focused on a quick economic recovery. This is understandable, as the Georgian economy was still recovering from the collapse of the early 90’s, and the pressure to accelerate the process was high. At that time, the existing environmental regulations were perceived as an additional constraint to faster growth, and as potentially fertile ground for corruption.

An ISET-PI team is participating in a project called Global Programme to Prevent Son Preference and Gender-Biased Sex Selection. An ISET-PI team is partnering UNFPA country office in Georgia in the scope of a Global Programme to Prevent Son Preference and Gender-biased Sex Selection in the region.

According to the recent World Happiness Report 2017, Georgia ranks 125th among 155 countries with respect to peoples’ happiness. On a 0-10 happiness scale, the country scores only 4.29. Figure 1 below presents rankings and happiness scores for Georgia and its neighbors, as well as for the world’s best and worst performers.

The ISET team conducted an online survey that began with the following question: if you could choose where to be born, what country would you pick? We intentionally formulated the question in this way, which is very different from asking “where would you like to travel or to migrate?” This formulation was meant to allow us to look into characteristics of countries to determine which ones individuals find interesting and appealing if a veil of ignorance is added about their initial standing in the society (e.g. in family and/or social class status at birth).