From the ISET Economist news (http://www.iset.ge/news/?p=3871)
By Eric Livny
Democracy and Freedom Watch reported October 9, that “Georgia’s controversial new immigration law may be changed”. The law, writes DFW, “has caused a wave of confusion and irritation in the country’s expat community. Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili … told journalists that if any defects become apparent after the enactment of the new law, ‘we’ll surely correct it.’”
Just a month earlier, confusion, irritation and public outrage were caused by another piece of Georgian legislation – a law greatly limiting the sales of non-prescription drugs (see Florian Biermann’s post). The outrage was caused by the fact that many of the drugs affected by the new law, e.g. plain painkillers, were in extremely wide use. As a result, less than two weeks after coming into force on September 11, the law was amended by the health minister, Davit Sergeenko, allowing 772 medicines to be sold over the counter, without a prescription.
One could perhaps say, as the Germans do, ende gut, alles gut. But, alles is nicht gut. The fact that such REALLY BIG MISTAKES are allowed to occur in the first place suggests that something is deeply flawed in the Georgian policymaking machine. One obvious concern is the lack of due “public policy” process. Indeed, there was nothing particularly urgent about either piece of legislation; both could have benefited from a proper technical review, “stakeholder consultations” and a public debate.
Second, and very importantly, these grand failures suggest that Georgian lawmakers lack a proper understanding as to the role of regulation in an economy, and how much of it a country like Georgia needs (or can afford).
THE BENEFITS OF PROCRASTINATION AND DEBATE
Any discussion of regulations can easily get politicized, sparking seemingly futile and lengthy political exchanges. Left-wing intellectuals would argue that regulations are there to address market failures (such as drug addiction and overconsumption of antibiotics) or protect the weak and vulnerable (e.g. by securing their jobs and providing income support). The libertarians among us would argue that the market can correct itself, and that, in any case, state paternalism is not a solution to any problem. Rather, it creates unnecessary red tape and leads to unintended consequences such as laziness, corruption, illicit economic activities (“black market”) and smuggling. State failures, according to the enlightened libertarian view, are as much of a problem as market failures.
Such a clash of ideas is quite legitimate, and – if conducted in a civil and constructive manner – should be welcome in any community and polity. For one thing, it would provide legislators with a better understanding of the “problem” they are trying to solve (if there is a problem), such as:
the incidence of antibiotic resistance among Georgians;
immigrants competing with (or creating jobs for) low-skilled Georgian workers;
the extent of land grabbing (as well as investment and job creation) by Punjabi farmers.
Ultimately, whether liberal immigration regime (or free access to medications) is to be recognized as a “problem” is about politics rather than science. Still, having some evidence to consider before rushing with regulatory “solutions” would be a good step forward. It may well be the case that, while generating “killer” headlines, a “problem” is ridiculously small in magnitude or does not even exist.
Secondly, when faced with the need to publicly defend their proposals, proponents of regulations would be forced to analyze alternative solutions while taking into account the cost factor, effectiveness in terms of actually solving the problem at hand, related corruption risks, and other types of collateral damage.
DON’T BITE OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW!
But perhaps the most ideology-free criterion of evaluating the feasibility of regulations is whether a country has the requisite human capacities and skills. Even a relatively simple regulation, such as traffic lights, may be counterproductive if not properly planned and executed. First, there is the basic question of how to regulate a given intersection (traffic lights are effective only when traffic intensity exceeds a certain threshold level, which is almost never reached at night). Second, traffic lights have to be properly timed to maximize intersection capacity and minimize delays). Poorly planned traffic lights – hello, Tbilisi! – are not only a drag on traffic but also a safety hazard.
What is true about traffic, is equally true for extremely complex regulations such as anti-trust, labor, and food safety, which Georgia has subscribed to as part of the Association Agreement with the EU. For instance, it will take years – maybe even generations – to build the necessary professional capacities within the Georgian parliament and judiciary, the competition watchdog, the economics, legal and management professions in order to implement Swedish-style anti-trust law in the Georgian context. Thankfully, for now Georgia is paying lip service to some its EU-related commitments (e.g. by creating a competition agency and copy-pasting anti-trust legislation without caring to enforce it).
The botched attempts to rewrite immigration and pharmaceuticals laws suggest that professional skills are in extremely scarce supply throughout Georgia’s bureaucracy. After all, the Georgian state is one of the youngest in the world; Georgia’s educated urban elite is a tiny sliver of the population; and even this sliver has been impoverished by many years of brain drain and outmigration. In this situation, the Georgian state should not attempt to bite off more than it can chew. It should avoid complex regulations, even when these are theoretically desirable or required by its international partners. It should certainly avoid thoughtlessly copy-pasting regulations that have been designed for other times and other places.
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A short story by Leo Tolstoy titled “How much land does a man need” describes the fate of a land-hungry Russian peasant, Pakhom, who is promised as much land as he can walk around from sunrise till sunset. One condition is attached: he has to make a full circle and return to the point origin by the end of the day. To maximize his future land holdings, Pakhom sets on a rather ambitious circular route, and is too late to realize that he cannot make it back on time. He runs as fast as he can and, exhausted from the effort, drops dead at the point of origin. His servant buries him in a grave only two meters long, thus ironically answering the question posed in the title.
Livestock transhumance will no longer disturb Tsintskaro Village population in Tetritskaro Municipality. The local Municipal DRR Working Group initiated a new infrastructure project which will solve the problems related to the seasonal transhumance in this particular village.
From the ISET Economist news (http://www.iset.ge/news/?p=3311)
By Eric Livny
(Summary of a debate hosted by ISET as part of SDC-supported Inclusive Growth Dialog series.)
There are many reasons to love the concept of farmer cooperation (and cooperation more generally). To begin with, there is a great aesthetic value in seeing people coming together, sharing resources and helping each other. After all, instinctive collectivism was the basic condition of human existence from time immemorial. But, there are also powerful economic reasons for farmer cooperation.
The Road – a beautifully shot documentary capturing the reality and dichotomies of the people who use the ancient transhumance route; the lifeline of livestock in Georgia
A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure (MRDI) and the Swiss Development Cooperation project the Mercy Corps Georgia implemented, Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme (ALCP) in Kvemo Kartli, The aim of the memorandum is to support the ongoing outreach at local government level of practical implementation of the 2010 Georgian Gender Equality Law which will greatly aid in the general development of rural Georgian municipalities.
From the ISET Economist news (http://www.iset.ge/news/?p=3056)
By Tim Stewart
As Georgia embarks on an ambitious program to develop farmer organizations, it is worth considering both the positive and negative lessons from the experience of similar initiatives, both in Georgia and elsewhere in the developing/transition context. The piece by Tim Stewart, originally published on www.springfieldcentre.com, identifies some of the main reasons for the failure of start-up farmer organizations. The challenge for Georgia is to learn from these mistakes in planning and implementation, and ensure improved coordination among the many cooks involved (the newly created Agency for the Development of Agricultural Cooperatives, the Ministry of Agriculture, international donors, NGOs, and farmer associations).
Publishing the following series of stories is an attempt to highlight the ethnic diversity of Kvemo Kartli. We are going to tell you the stories of five women living in various parts of Kvemo Kartli; these women have different lifestyles and represent different cultures, but they still have a lot in common. This is their history in stories. Stories of work, endurance, taboos, restriction, dignity, honesty and womanhood. You will not see figures and percentages here; this is not a quantitative survey. These are stories that allow us to build on those figures and percentages and enable us to develop profiles of Ajarian, Svan, Azeri, Armenian, Greek and local Georgian women’s lives, to understand their complexities and areas of commonality and to reflect this in our work as a programme.
Kvemo Kartli is one of the most ethnically diverse regions of Georgia. Ethnic diversity has developed over centuries and many contrasts and cultural differences have accumulated in this region; the study and management of these contrasts and differences and the development of models for peaceful cohabitation is not an easy task. Cultural, ethnic and language differences can be seen in every detail of life. Differences are present in rural and urban areas, in highlands and lowlands, in methods of doing business. Our objective in recording these stories was to attempt to create a profile of these women, to listen to them and build the picture of their lives, to understand the effects that culture and ethnic origin have on their lives, to see what opportunities they have and how they use or fail to use these opportunities, if they have them at all.
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