GEO/96/006
Total budget: USD 561,957
UNDP sector: Poverty Eradication
Starting date: August 1996
Duration: 36 months

Background

Following the breakdown of the former USSR, the Government of Georgia committed itself to the principles of a market economy, democratisation and pluralism. In view of Georgia's decisive move towards this direction, a serious bottleneck emerged in the field of statistics, which did not correspond any longer to the new demands of a market economy. The need arose for a complete change in the system of national statistics since Georgian institutions appeared to be unable to depict a real picture of the Georgian situation related to priority issues such as employment, informal sector or enterprise labour flexibility. As a matter of example, in early 1990s the official unemployment rate was slightly more than 1.5%. This rate was considered extremely low, compared with the estimate derived from the pilot household survey of the World Bank showing an unemployment rate of about 20%. Likewise, there was a lack of reliable data on the informal sector although those are of uttermost importance for the design and monitoring of specific support policies and assistance programmes related to the informal sector. Finally, it was also found that, parallel to Georgia's newly launched privatisation process, information on how enterprises were adjusting themselves to the new economic situation was not available in any useable form.

Objective

The objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of Georgian national statistical institutions in order to enable them to produce reliable statistical data in line with the requirements of a market economy.

Activities

1. To organise abroad and in-country trainings in the field of employment, unemployment and underemployment.

2. To carry out related surveys for a period of 24 months with a sufficiently large sample of households and with data disaggregated by region and gender.

3. To combine, on the basis of a feasibility study, the household survey results with the monthly unemployment registration data to produce monthly and quarterly unemployment estimates for further publication.

4. To provide advisory services and relevant training on the collection and analysis of informal sector data.

5. To determine the most suitable survey approach and methodology for statistical measurement of the informal sector in Georgia and conduct a statistical survey on the informal sector in Georgia under guidance by the ILO and with data disaggregated by region and gender. To review and analyse the survey results.

6. To field an ILO mission to Georgia in order to organise and carry out an enterprise flexibility survey and to prepare a report based on the results of the survey in close co-operation with international experts and representatives of local authorities.

Expected outcomes

At the end of the Project it is expected that the State Department for Social and Economic Information and the Ministry of Social Security, Labour and Employment have built up their statistical capacity on employment/unemployment, informal sector and enterprise flexibility data collection and analysis and, as a result they have in place core elements of a labour statistics programme for monitoring the employment situation of this country and in particular to examine the adjustment process to the privatisation programme currently underway.