FAIRS AND THE LEGAL BUSINESS

Otar Kiria

Sixty leading specialists from governmental and non-governmental organisations met at conference held in Gudauri on 24-28 April, 2001. Conference members shared gained abroad experience and recommended the Georgian government what should be useful for reforming social sector in Georgia.

Conference members included non-governmental organisations, patriarchy of Georgia, the Committee of Healthcare and Social Issues at the Parliament, related governmental bodies and foreign guest experts.
Sixty leading specialists from governmental and non-governmental organisations who participated in the training program for leading Georgian social policy experts that took place in Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw, met on April 24 to 28, 2001 at the conference at Gudauri to evaluate the gained experience and to recommend the Georgian government, society and international organisations what should be done next in Georgian social development.
Having listened to reports of the four groups discussed their recommendations the participants agreed that the existing system does not provide balanced social protection, which would satisfy social needs of Georgia’s population in accordance with economic development of the country. It is burdened by heritage of the previous regime and lacks appropriate institutions to meet the needs of country heading for a market economy and a democratic society. The system needs a through reform, which would introduce new approaches and more adequate institutions.
Social development is closely linked with economic development. Economic development should provide means for social development and social development should remove political and social bottlenecks to economic restructuring and development. That is why a social reform scenario should accompany every economic reform program.
State social policy has no articulated philosophy of an efficient social security system. The government documents lack specific priorities, criteria and mechanisms for target-oriented protection of population. Not having a clearly defined strategy and priorities in social development leads to waste of public funds and enables corruption.
Social protection in the present economic conditions of Georgia is not sufficiently both in terms of legislation, institutional structures and competencies and in terms of financing. A governmental social strategy should be developed indicating what the legal and institutional structures and competencies shell be supported. It should be clear what social protection the government intends to provide and what social activities it intends to support. It should further declare what shell be the responsibilities of the central government and of the local government and under what conditions these public bodies can employ the service of the non-governmental and non-profit sector organisations.
Government through its social policies and institutions is not able to meet the variety of social needs of the population. it should involve non-governmental organisation and contract out some of the social services. Forms of coordination and cooperation between NGOs and the state should be developed and means of communication sought. To enhance public evolvement in social services the legislation needs to be improved and amended. Such involvement of NGOs will enhance democracy and have a positive political effect, enhance thrust to governmental institutions and popular support to government activities.
Many of the present NGOs are unsustainable and incredible. They are weak and lack proper management, efficient administration and effective fund-raising techniques. To improve the situation training opportunities and expert consultations should be offered be the government or otherwise developed with international support.
The most important tool for poverty alleviation is enhancement of access to economic activities and regular income by active employment policies and micro-credits to encourage self-employment. The architecture of social policies should avoid creating social traps and should aim to enhance active approaches. Social policies should therefore be closely linked with employment policies and should focus upon enabling all people to work – be it in employment or self-employment. Projects aiming at active participation of people in economic life such as public works should be supported. Various forms of government support to employers providing jobs to disabled should be developed.
Much of the social distress is caused by lack of information. People are not informed of their rights and of the social benefits available to them. The public information system is poor and inadequate to the present situation in the country. There are no centres, which would assist the people in distress to find adequate solutions to their problems.
Much of the social activities in the country are performed by professionally unskilled staff. There is no systematic education for social policy experts and social workers.
Having agreed on the above issues conference recommended that the government should promote a comprehensive social reform. The government should aim at developing a balanced social protection system, which would satisfy social needs of Georgia’s population in accordance with economic development of the country.
To avoid inconsistent and piecemeal approaches in the scenario the government and Parliament should articulate a philosophy of the future social system on which all the segments of the political spectrum of Georgia will agree. The basis of such philosophy should be maximum realisation of internationally recognised human rights. The present philosophy of the system is based on passive care-taking and consumption by beneficiaries inherited form the preceding regime. This approach is less effective then the modern active approach supporting self-sufficiency and social integration of the people need, developing their ability to work and live in society. The active approach is a tradition in the pre-soviet Georgian society. The government should revive the traditional approaches and publicity, declare its intentions to support the pro-integrative approaches and provide functional mechanisms for implementation and financing of a pro-active social protection.
The philosophy should predetermine the contents of the scenario for social reform. The scenario for a comprehensive social reform should also include: a) Promoting employment and formation of effective system for the social protection of the unemployed that would motivate the unemployed to seek economic activity; b) Establishing a family oriented social security system; c) Establishing a non-governmental pension system.
The development of a comprehensive and efficient social system will need research including, development of methodology. Especially the reform of the pension system will require evaluation and forecast of demographic development, assessment of social efficiency and cost-effectiveness of acting pension system, assessment of existing governmental liabilities, personification and its impact on the pension system reform, identification of investment directions, risk assessment and identification of reserve norms, development of pensions schemes, evaluation of their impact on different groups of population with nature. Government should initiate the research and professional non-governmental capacities should be invited to participate.
To overcome the lack of public information centres of information should created and information on the available social benefit system fully distributed among the population.
To enhance professional discussion of social issues a neutral platform should be created where professionals, scientists and politicians could regularly meet and discuss all issues of social development. The professional debate could have the form of a non-governmental club organising regular conferences and seminars on hot social issues and strategies. At a later stage such a club could encourage or promote social science development, professional training of specialists and dissemination of information (publish books and professional journal).
The government should develop legislation defining the possible roles of NGOs in the social sector. It should identify sources of funds to be contributed by governmental institutions to NGOs, and methods of tendering, granting, contracting and monitoring how the money is employed.
To become more credibel the NGOs in the social sector should specify and target their activities in a very clear manner, develop close links with risk groups, accept all forms of regular competition, develop simplified functioning regimes, master effective system for attracting funds and account for effective expenditure of funds.
To enhance professionalism in social policy and social work, university studies of social policy and social work should be established and post-graduate studies of those already engaged in social work should be developed.
An agreement should be reached between government and non-governmental sector on the involvement of NGOs in social sector activities and reforms and their role defined. Forms of coordination an cooperation between NGOs and state should be developed through a group of pilot projects focused upon: employment of handicapped persons; self supporting and income generating projects for vulnerable groups of the type “help yourself”; social integration, rehabilitation and re-socialisation of children at risk.
To avoid incompetence and abuse a system of registration and of licensing or approbation by the government could be put into place for NGOs those intend to operate in social sector.
Dr. Devi Tabidze, Committee on Healthcare and Social Issues at the Parliament of Georgia: “Of course, there’s no 100% guarantee of the government of Georgia stipulating the above recommendations, but I don’t think the huge work, support and spent time will have no meaning and reform remains unrealised. At any rate, my committee and me will do the best to support the process of reform’s realisation. Theoretically, recommendations may look too abstractive, but in practice, they play a huge role. Thereof, not foreseeing them is inadmissible”.
Paul Tomesh (Check Republic): “I’d like to underline the fact that Georgia has been provided a great support in preparing the professionals and advancing their qualification. Training program for sixty specialists in foreign countries those have just passed the social reform is too important. I can not say anything about will the Georgian government foresee the above recommendations or not, but make sure that they are reliable and valuable, as the elaboration work by the above sixty specialists, governmental; and non-governmental specialists, other scientists and guests, which took a week is really trustworthy. I advice Georgian government to foresee them, as it’ll solve the biggest problem”.
P.S. In terms of existing conditions, not foreseeing such recommendations is really unfit. It’s the same, when someone presents a dish cooked by other instead of you and you even idle to eat it, or you do not idle, but unwill.