On December 10-11, ISET’s APRC team organized a comprehensive stakeholder dialogue to discuss the interim results of the RIA on draft Law on Windbreaks. The two-day workshop gathered representatives of the Agrarian Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, municipalities, the private sector (principally in the form of farmers), international donors (IFAD, GIZ), and various NGOs.

First, the research team presented the approach that was used to consider the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the RIA process. This presentation featured how the main principles of Agenda 2030 (such as the concepts of ‘leave no one behind', shared responsibility, accountability, universality, and integrated approaches) were considered in the different steps of the RIA. The linkages of the draft law with different SDGs were also outlined and discussed with the audience.

Afterwards, the APRC team presented the preliminary results of RIA, focusing on a cost-benefit analysis of different options. This presentation was followed by several groups works to validate assumptions used in the analysis, comment on the preliminary results, perform a multi-criteria analysis of different RIA options, and come up with additional indicators for the monitoring and evaluation plan for the law.

The APRC received very useful feedback from the participants of the workshop. The collected suggestions, additional information material, and valuable perspectives will help to refine the analysis. The final results of this RIA will be presented to stakeholders in January 2019.