On February 24th, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. This event not only marked the collapse of a painstakingly built global security architecture and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions of civilians in the heart of Europe, it also put the world on the brink of the largest nuclear, humanitarian, and ecological catastrophe since WWII.

As I am writing these lines, Russian tanks are moving deeper into the territory of my country, Ukraine, and emotions are threatening to overwhelm me. But emotions cannot shake what we, as economics scholars, value the most: devotion to truth and careful, impartial use of facts and logic to arrive at conclusions.

The term “dollarization”, commonly used among academic economists and finance specialists, has already entered Georgians’ everyday vocabulary. Few people, however, understand what dollarization is, how it comes about and why they should care. Below we try to fill this gap, explaining some basic concepts and discussing why and how dollarization affects ordinary people’s lives.

ISET Policy Institute team supports the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia in implementing diversified financial mechanisms in Vocational Education and Training (VET). The project is implemented with the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

The SCGEI (South Caucasus Gender Equality Index) provides policy-makers, independent researchers and the general public with a unique evidence-based tool to inform policy actions, an objective way of measuring gender inequality, and an inclusive platform to initiate dialogue and further analysis of the underlying issues and potential solutions.