"Human rights and human development share a common vision and a common purpose... Human rights and human development are both about securing basic freedoms. Human rights express the bold idea that all people have claims to social arrangements that secure freedom and a life of dignity. Human development is a process of enhancing human capacities".

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document signed more than 50 years ago, comprises a set of simple and ambitious goals reaching across political, social and economic spheres. The range of issues embodied in the Declaration is wide and goes from the right to life and liberty to the right to access social security, from the prohibition of torture to the right to work and protection against unemployment, from the right of freedom of opinion to the right of a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of a man and his family.

No doubt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a bold document. It represented the wishes and hopes of a world genuinely, though momentarily, tired of wars and their miseries. Some of its articles are undoubtedly impossible to challenge and have passed the test of time, like the right to life, liberty, and security of person, or the right to stand equal to others in front of the law. Who could argue against these rights? Others, such as the right to work or the right to social security, may invite discussion. Although these are formal "rights" in a planned economy, Georgians have learnt they are not in a market system. Indeed, in a market economy full employment not only depends on successfully carrying out a complex set of interrelated policies, but also on external factors that may fall outside the country in question’s control, for instance, an economic crisis elsewhere with negative local impacts. We will expand on this discussion in subsequent chapters.

The world has the awareness, the resources, and the capacity to comply fully with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the country level, however, the situation differs widely from place to place. The different capacity of each country to meet the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an idea that can also be found in some of its articles. For instance, the right to access social security is "in accordance with the organizations and resources of each state". If pensions are lost, therefore, between central and regional accounts, each pensioner’s access to his/her proper compensation after a life of work will be less probable than in a country such as Sweden, where such leaks are unthinkable.

The same can be said with regard to the right to education or the right to appropriate health care. Their provision will also depend on the particular "organization" of each state. This is a proxy term for country’s institutional capacity, such as its capacity to formulate appropriate laws and respect them. In turn, the resources at each government’s disposal and their growth over time heavily depend on the particular "organizations" or institutions of the state. Weak institutions, such as an inefficient judicial system or a government with low levels of spending efficiency, are just examples of bad types of "organizations". These usually result in insufficient resources to secure the population’s access to an array of human rights, for instance, education and health care.

Except for those rights associated with freedom in general, such as that of expression, and basic rights, such as that not to be subject to torture, a significant number of rights set forth in the Declaration and agreed upon by the signatory countries share much with "public goods". For example, one such public good is the proper maintenance of roads, and another, the maintenance of public order. People want to enjoy these services but the incentives to shirk do exist. That is, an individual may prefer to enjoy well-maintained roads while avoiding paying his/her respective contribution in the form of a vehicle registration tax. The provision of public education or health care does not differ much from this example. People may want to enjoy the benefits of a proper public education system while avoiding, as much as possible, their respective contribution in terms of general taxes. People may want to have a proper police force in place, one that does not demand a bribe for everything it does. But to do so requires government capacity to pay adequate salaries, which is a function of people paying their respective share of taxes. Georgians are not alone in this respect. The incentive for people to shirk their respective contributions to the provision of public goods is an issue that has spawned a wealth of literature.

Thus the provision of a significant array of human rights depends on the characteristics of local institutions, which in turn affect the government’s capacity to develop and carry out sound social and economic policies. These determine the country’s capacity to fulfill its commitments to the Declaration of Human Rights.

Countries cannot fulfill all rights simultaneously. A refusal to establish priorities runs the risk of turning the human rights approach into something of a wish list. This report assesses the Georgian population’s degree of access to a number of human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration. In particular, it analyzes those most affecting life expectancy, education and income. The decision to choose these areas is partly because they are the components that form the Human Development Index. It is also partly our own choice, because we believe the selected components provide a fair picture of the present situation in Georgia regarding human rights.

The report shows that the picture is not simple. Basic contradictions emerge between the existence of a poor economic performance and slowly improving living conditions; between schools in appalling conditions and a high combined primary, secondary, and tertiary enrollment; between a moribund health care system and a high life expectancy. This report attempts to explain these apparent contradictions.

We begin in Chapter 1 by describing the population’s access to political and civil rights. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Georgia has come far in its efforts to install a functioning democracy and to ensure the respect of civil and political rights. With the exception of the Baltic States, the country is a leader in the areas of press freedom and in judicial reforms. Much remains to be done, however. The measures have barely reached the population outside Tbilisi and other big towns and the state law enforcement bodies still show a worrying tendency to disregard civil and political rights.

Chapter 2 introduces the concept of the Human Development Index (HDI) and Georgia’s ranking in the HDI. The country’s relatively acceptable HDI score is largely a result of its good scores on the life expectancy and education indices. The index for income, which is the third component of the HDI, however lags behind the life expectancy and education indices. The chapter goes over some of the most important factors that affect Georgians’ capacity to obtain income. The chapter finds that average incomes have been growing despite the economic crisis that has engulfed the country since 1998 and today are above minimal subsistence levels. Average income, however, is just half the story. For a large proportion of the population, incomes continue to be meager and below subsistence levels. A second surprising finding is that equality of income shows a tendency to improve largely as a result of contributions from the informal or shadow economy. This gives us cause for concern. A flourishing informal economy contradicts the government’s capacity to provide public goods such as a bribe-free police or an efficient judicial system.

Chapter 3 looks at access to health care services. Georgia shows a remarkably good figure for the life expectancy at birth index against a general backdrop of a crumbling health care system, which has been de-facto privatized via an impressive system of informal payments in public hospitals and clinics. We find that the distribution of total household expenses in health care is highly unequal and reflects the general population’s remarkably different levels of access to these services. We are concerned that the current benign figure for the life expectancy index is unsustainable in the long run given the dismal health care service available to the general public.

Chapter 4 repeats the same analysis for the education sector. Again, we see that Georgia exhibits world class figures for combined primary, secondary and tertiary enrollment. The quality of education, however, remains a serious concern: one that has already been reported in other analyses and studies published by international organizations and the Georgian government. The chapter finds that access to primary and secondary education appears to have little value in the pursuit of social recognition and income. For Georgians, tertiary education is what really matters. But an informal system of tutors and payments dominates access to higher education. This works against those in the lower strata of the population or those lacking the proper social and clan contacts.

Chapter 5 summarizes the contents of the report and introduces a discussion about the significance of the clan structure in Georgian society, weak institutions, and the government’s capacity to guarantee the whole population’s access to human rights. Perhaps not surprisingly, we conclude that Georgia’s challenge to ensure its population can adequately access those human rights outlined in the Universal Declaration totally depends on the state’s capacity to adopt the appropriate "organizational" structures and methods that will give government employees and citizens alike the incentive to remain in the formal economy, obey existing laws, and contribute their fair share towards increasing the government’s capacity to provide public goods.