World Bank Approves $ 509 Million for Programs in Georgia
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Thursday, March 24, 2022
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved the Human Capital Program for Georgia, financing $400 million which will be the largest cross-sectoral investment ever extended to Georgia by the World Bank over the 30 years of its partnership.
The program aims to improve the quality of life for all citizens of Georgia with fair and equal access to high-quality education, better targeted social benefits, and strong preventive healthcare with the lowered cost of treatments and medications.
The World Bank’s Program for Results (PforR) in Georgia will be the first financing instrument of its kind anywhere to comprehensively improve education, health, and social protection outcomes.
Sebastian Molineus, World Bank Regional Director for the South Caucasus announced that the foundation for inclusive and sustained growth, which provides better jobs and opportunities for its people in Georgia can only be built by unlocking the full potential of its human capital, by ensuring access to high-quality education for the next generation, and by delivering equal healthcare and social protection services for all citizens.
Lasha Khutsishvili, Minister of Finance of Georgia thanked the World Bank and emphasized the importance of that priority direction and underlined the cruciality of deploying innovative solutions in the time of Covid-19 "to protect human capital outcomes, close equity gaps, and alleviate negative effects of the pandemic in the more consistent manner."
The health and social protection dimension of the Human Capital Program will contribute to increasing efficiencies of service delivery and promote the inclusion of vulnerable groups in health, social, and employment services. The reforms are expected to improve the social assistance coverage of poor households with children and to better prepare and connect the unemployed to job opportunities. The Program will help the Government to reform health service purchasing and pricing, improve efficiency and equity in the pharmaceutical market, and transform and strengthen primary health as well as hospital care in Georgia.
The main objective of the education reforms supported by the Human Capital Program is to upgrade the skills and competencies of Georgia’s children and youth to better tackle increasingly complex problems that face modern societies. From Pre-School through High School to University and beyond, the Program will support the transformation of Georgia’s education system from mere knowledge provision to developing capabilities of problem-solving, collaboration, and communication.
The Program will do this through a fundamental reform of the financing and organization of the education system. Students will have access to better facilities and teachers and school authorities will receive better and closer support in all regions of Georgia. The digital education infrastructure, from Tbilisi through to the most remote mountain-top village, will be made more robust and resilient.
Another direction that the program showcases Georgia’s commitment to is the global climate change agenda. Due to its mountainous geography, Georgia is particularly vulnerable to climate change-related crisis events. Together with short-term mitigation actions, like reduced greenhouse gas emissions and energy efficiency in schools, the Program supports the development of concerted climate change action by all individuals. The Program envisages modules on climate change and energy efficiency in environmental education, training teachers, and holding workshops on climate-resilient and energy-efficient schools, as well as promoting access to skill training necessary for green jobs.
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors also approved the Kakheti Connectivity Improvement Project (KCIP), for $109 million, to help connect Georgia’s easternmost winemaking region of Kakheti to the capital and the country’s highway network via a construction project of a 17-km, four-lane, access-controlled highway. The program envisions financing the construction of the highway section between the towns of Sagarejo and Badiauri, as part of the Tbilisi-Bakurtsikhe-Lagodekhi highway corridor connecting Kakheti with Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia.
Additionally to the KCIP, the Georgian Government will build the first 3 sections of this corridor from Tbilisi to Sagarejo, expected to be operational by 2025, ‘using a similar design, construction, fiduciary, and environmental and social safeguard approaches as that of the Bank-financed section’.
As a major agricultural production center, and the most important wine-producing and exporting region with significant tourism attraction and growth potential, Kakheti will benefit from increased freight traffic, as well as shorter and safer travel to the capital and beyond. The project is also expected to contribute to Georgia’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, especially in the short term, by generating jobs in construction and by facilitating income generation for local traders.
The bank has allocated $407 million for rehabilitation of secondary and local roads network, amounting to over $1 billion investment over the last 16 years. Since 2006 and in partnership with the Georgian Government, it has collectively mobilized $2 billion for developing the country’s national highway network.
