On October 9, Agricultural Policy Research Center organized an excursion to Phoka Nunnery of St. Nino, in the Javakheti region of Georgia. The Javakheti highland is a mountainous terrain at an altitude of 2000 m above sea level and home to the ominous Abul Mountain (3301 m) which can be seen from every side. Students from both ISET and researchers ISET-PI joined the excursion.
The nunnery makes many contributions to education of the completely non-Georgian local population. Extra lessons are conducted for the school pupils on Georgian language and literature, geography and English.
On October 7th, the head of the Agricultural Policy Research Center (APRC), Pati Mamardashvili and researchers Lasha Lanchava and Irakli Kochlamazashvili attended a parliamentary discussion regarding the 2016 budget of the Ministry of Agriculture. This meeting was organized by the Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC) in the framework of the project "Strengthening the System of Parliamentary Democracy in Georgia".
In addition to other research centers and non-governmental organizations, APRC researchers talked about the different sectors and services of agriculture and respective budget allocations. In particular, specific suggestions were made towards incorporating up to date research findings from development economics for designing informed insurance and cooperation development policies.