Economics and Social Policy

25 July 2016

Administrative Expenses of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office (2011-2015)

Since 2012 expenses of Georgia's General Prosecutor's Office has significantly raised in accordance with the number of people employees at the structure.

4 July 2016

Challenges of the Universal Healthcare Program and Ways to Overcome Them

This policy brief prepared by IDFI aims to study the challenges faced by the universal healthcare program, and develop recommendations on how to overcome them and how to ensure the program is implemented in an efficient and uninterrupted manner.

30 May 2016

Overpriced Tickets for Teach and Learn with Georgia

IDFI has recently conducted an investigation into the National Center for Teacher Professional Development’s procurement of flights for volunteers participating in its Teach and Learn with Georgia program. Our findings indicate that that there were several irregularities in nine electronic tenders dating back to 2013 and totaling GEL 571,714. As a result, the government may have been significantly overcharged for these flight tickets.

19 May 2016

Problems with the Soft Budgetary (Constraints) Policy

The concept of the soft budgetary constraints, described for the socialist and later for the transformational states, is the fundamental contradiction in terms of macroeconomic stability, causes the increase in costs that happens faster than the mobilizing revenues through taxes, which is the precondition for loan accumulation.

17 May 2016

Ruled Competition in the Healthcare System and Georgian Reforms

Increasing costs of healthcare is the problem of healthcare system in not only Georgia, but in many other countries across the world.

10 May 2016

State Awards Issued by Georgian Presidents in 2003-2015

IDFI requested public information from the President’s Administration on state awards and found that the Georgian Presidents had issued 11,595 awards in 2003-2015, including 5,525 Orders of Honor, 2,541 - Medals of Honor, and 1,160 Medals of Military Courage. The largest number of awards was issued in the final years of Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidency, 2,681 in 2012 and 1,926 in 2013.

6 May 2016

Georgia in the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom

Georgia ranks 23rd among 178 countries by the freedom of its economy and is ahead of most Post-Soviet, Eastern European and neighboring countries. Despite an overall positive result, Georgia still faces challenges in terms of freedom of its financial sector and the rule of law, specifically unprotected property rights, corruption and lack of independence of the judiciary.

6 May 2016

IDFI at ADB 49th Annual Meeting in Frankfurt

Annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have become a premier forum for the discussion of economic and social development issues in Asia and the Pacific. The meetings provides excellent opportunity for member governments to interact with ADB staff, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), media, and representatives of observer countries, international organizations, academe and the private sector to discuss current issues and challenges that Asian region is facing, with the goal of identifying possible solutions.

23 March 2016

Free Industrial Zones and Confidentiality of Tax Information in Georgia (IDFI VS Revenue Service)

On April 16, 2015, the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) sent a freedom of information letter to the Georgian Revenue Service requesting information on whether the Revenue Service had conducted inspections of Free Industrial Zones (FIZ) in the country. IDFI also requested the reports or protocols prepared by the Revenue Service as a result of these inspections.

18 March 2016

Strategic Plan Georgia 2020 - Strengthening Public Involvement (ZigB) (2015-2016) Final Report

The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), in partnership with the University of Bremen and with the financial support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany implemented the project “Strategic Plan Georgia 2020 – Strengthening Public Involvement” between July 10, 2015 and February 10, 2016. The goal of the project was to raise the awareness among civil society groups and to strengthen the understanding of Georgia’s socio-economic development strategy “Georgia 2020”, to identify problems and to formulate relevant recommendations, existing challenges and the implementation process of the strategy.