The FINANCIAL — The general level of the people at NGOs in Georgia is much higher than of those in public administration. The existing strong civil society is killing public administration, demotivating them to initiate something new for fear of inciting criticism, believe foreign experts. Defining a part of its economic development is the main task of the Georgian Government, together with investing in education.
The FINANCIAL met with leading U.S. and EU university professors, hosted by the Institute for the Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) recently. The academic personnel shared their thoughts regarding the current challenges for Georgia and the main steps they should take to improve economic conditions.
“The NGO sector is very strong in Georgia. Even when I talk to the representatives of NGOs and to ones who work in public administration, I would say that the general level of people in the NGO sector is much higher. They are cleverer and more precise. They know what they are talking about and they are confident enough to be critical of others. Young educated people do not want to go into the public sector. I understand that NGOs have to be critical, but I would like to ask them to let at least one decision be implemented. What I witness is that decisions in public administration and the state sector in Georgia are made slower than they used to be. The civil society is so strong that it might have started to kill public administration,” Kristiina Tõnnisson, Director of EuroCollege, University of Tartu, Estonia, told The FINANCIAL.
Tõnnisson believes that NGOs and public administration do not always need to be conflicting parties. “Finding partnership between these two sides is important. This is what we have reached in Estonia and what I would like to see in Georgia as well. We should not kill the motivation of public administration.”
Like Tõnnisson, Weber from Southern Methodist University also said that “sitting on the side it is easy to criticize everything”. In his words, it is more difficult to really do something. “People should be allowed to do their jobs and be the judge of the results, but you need some period of time to let people perform without being attacked and harassed,” said Shlomo Weber, Professor of Economics, Southern Methodist University (SMU), Dallas, USA.
“NGOs play a part in shaping policy. NGOs are part of a democratic state, if you want democracy. Information and decisions are more shared. If you compartmentalize the decision process, if you close the information from other people it is not possible to have democracy. It is not possible to have democracy without transparency. In Portugal we have our former PM in jail for corruption. It only shows that our institutions work,” said Antonio Castel-Branco, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Tõnnisson, Tartu University, said that the current Georgian economy is not competitive enough. “In order to jump further you need to find what you think is the competition on the EU or global level and then invest in that. That requires tough decisions. Georgia has huge potential. However, currently the country is choosing to have a kind of peaceful, calming tone and approach with everyone, like in the pension system, and how you have started to support each little agricultural unit, which is fine. But that does not actually help to increase export. If you want to increase export you need to concentrate on maybe just a very few numbers but that will bring the country up in the end,” Tõnnisson suggested.
“Unemployment is one of the main challenges in Georgia. Defining a part of its economic development is important. Making tremendous investments should become a priority of the country,” said Weber, SMU.
To assert our independence and belief in ourselves as a country was the main suggestion of Castel-Branco. “The second thing is to make sure that everybody has proper opportunities. If you have these two simple things, you will have a great country. The sense of independence as a country but also the sense of belonging to something bigger than your own country – that is what you are searching for right now.”
“One of the issues that Georgia does not do enough of is sending people abroad. Kazakhstan was the first country from the post-Soviet space that started sending its people to the U.S. and Europe. They came back to their home countries with upgraded skills and worked very well. Supporting education does not seem to be a top priority of the Government. So, the Government should invest in the education of their future generations. Even for Russia, investments in education are one of the country’s priorities,” said Weber.
He underlined tourism, education and IT as the main sectors that need to be developed in Georgia.
The poverty level in Georgia remains high. In order to become richer, Weber advises that people should operate their skills and match these skills to the emerging economy. “If the country indeed decides to go into IT development, then it is obvious that a professional choice should be made in this line and people should make their decision. The Government should tell its people which direction to go in. All the parts of society should be engaged in the paradigm of economic development.”
“Georgia has a tough geographical location. There are so many problems connected to your location, whether it is Abkhazia, Ossetia or other neighbours. In order to become richer somebody needs to get even poorer. However, finding the one that will become poorer is a tough decision.
The gap between rich and poor is even decreasing and after that if the policies are correct they need increasing. The forerunners need to bring the country up. I do not know if it will be the IT or agriculture sector but then again instead of having a thousand households and one cow maybe you should have ten households and a hundred cows. That will be a very tough decision to make. It happens with industries as well. For example in Estonia we had a textile industry. Then we decided that while it was a colourful industry it did not have intensive knowledge. So it more or less disappeared. And we have struggled with its outcome as so many people lost their jobs. Now we are struggling with how to make them able to be workforces in a knowledge-intensive economy. I am not sure if we can handle it. That is something also in Georgia because before you can spread the richness that your country has, you have to concentrate on that richness,” said Tõnnisson.
“Estonians had very strong and common goals and when we talked about the priorities in every field we decided that whatever it takes to become EU members, and whatever it takes to become a NATO member – we would do it. Then we can argue about everything else. That was a common, shared message from Estonia, that the message to the outside world needs to be the same, that all politicians, all public servants, all journalists and all NGOs will put out the same message. That was a tough process, but we managed to do it. We have these two priorities or these two main goals in common, that even if you are fighting until you bleed while achieving these two goals then so be it; we kept them as our goals and we do not compromise on that. The second was probably the willingness to make a tough decision in the beginning. We basically almost killed some areas before they started to grow again. We more or less killed agriculture, transportation and energy. It was a time when everybody was crying that the country’s officials did not care about its people and children. It was a fair argument as well,” Tõnnisson told The FINANCIAL.
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