As the Georgian Lari (GEL) briefly depreciated in September 2020, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) once again became the subject of criticism for not being able to stabilize the exchange rate even though it had injected 120 million US$ into the economy. At a press conference (2020/09/16), the President of the NBG objected that the aim of the injection of US$ was not to strengthen the GEL since the NBG operated under a floating exchange rate policy. Rather, he went on to explain, the NBG’s constitutional duty was to ensure price stability on the basis of an inflation-targeting framework.

On November 15-16, 2019, FREE Network and ISET Policy Institute organized and conducted an international gender economics conference in Tbilisi, Georgia1. The conference brought together researchers, policy-makers, and the broader development community to discuss obstacles to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, and policies to remove the existing constraints, focusing on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies.

On November 28-29, Deputy Head of the APRC Salome Gelashvili attended the annual "Dushanbe Economic Meeting 2019" conference in Tajikistan. The conference was organized in the framework of the "Towards Rural Inclusive Growth and Economic Resilience" project (implemented by) GIZ and was devoted to the topic of developing the competitiveness of the agro-industrial complex in Tajikistan.

November 15-16 witnessed the largest and most high-profile event of ISET’s year: the first international conference on gender economics entitled ‘Removing Obstacles to Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment’. The two-day event, hosted by ISET and the FREE Network (the Forum for Research On Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies), attracted academics from 14 countries, including Australia, India, Canada, the countries of the South Caucasus, Eastern and Western Europe.

On November 13, the Agricultural Policy Research Center at ISET-PI presented the main results of the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of the draft law of Georgia on soil protection at a stakeholder workshop held at the conference hall of the Environmental Education and Information Center (EEIC) of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia (MEPA).