00:15 My first trip to Georgia
00:18 uh
00:18 entailed a visit to Shatili.
00:20 It was just an amazing experience to witness the
00:23 stunning beauty that uh that Georgia has to offer.
00:26 I fell in love with the beauty of the country.
00:29 Once,
00:30 once you get to the top of the Caucasus,
00:31 you know,
00:32 uh,
00:32 the open air and,
00:33 you know,
00:33 horses running wild and,
00:35 um,
00:35 um,
00:36 and,
00:36 and the beauty is absolutely,
00:37 um,
00:38 um,
00:38 breathtaking.
00:39 What I remember most.
00:42 Was the hospitality of the Georgian people.
00:46 The hospitality
00:48 and the kindness
00:50 and the openness.
00:51 So wherever I went,
00:52 I was greeted with a warm smile,
00:55 um,
00:55 and just with an amazing amount of,
00:57 of kindness and generosity that
00:59 that I will certainly not forget.
01:02 That generosity of the Georgian people.
01:05 Uh,
01:07 I saw many times
01:08 when I went to rural towns,
01:11 and
01:12 poor people would suddenly
01:15 Through,
01:16 uh,
01:16 a spontaneous supra.
01:19 It was whatever they could put together
01:22 and,
01:22 and it was
01:25 sak government.
01:26 I fell in love with the,
01:28 with the people of,
01:29 of the country.
01:30 So,
01:30 you know,
01:30 leaving Georgia was very difficult.
01:32 It was like leaving home.
01:34 That sense of freedom,
01:36 I think that,
01:36 that the Georgians expressed in many,
01:39 many different ways that uh
01:41 I found
01:42 uh very appealing.
02:12 Georgia was in shock,
02:13 you know,
02:14 they'd had this almost civil war,
02:17 political turmoil,
02:18 and loss of territory,
02:21 and a loss of markets.
02:34 The country was very,
02:36 very insecure
02:38 and both physically,
02:41 economically,
02:42 and,
02:42 uh,
02:43 socially.
02:59 In.
03:30 that involved a huge amount of institutional building
03:48 working from tax to customs to ministry of finance
03:53 to all of the
03:55 public services,
03:56 health,
03:57 education.
03:58 Uh,
03:59 infrastructures.
04:14 So.
04:37 S.
04:51 Or.
05:06 So.
05:07 It was,
05:15 I think,
05:16 understandable that the
05:17 Georgians felt that this was
05:19 something that had been neglected in the,
05:21 in the post-Soviet period
05:24 and it was in danger of,
05:25 of
05:27 getting lost.
05:51 In.
06:20 So.
06:40 The people of Georgia who really worked very hard to try to make Georgia
06:45 a destination of choice for investors,
06:47 and the focus was really on better integration of Georgia with the global economy,
06:52 of adopting the standards,
06:54 the international,
06:55 the best international standards,
06:56 applying them to Georgia.
06:59 It was also an area for a lot of innovation.
07:17 Innovation in
07:18 in the design of how we actually
07:21 uh delivered services of how these so that
07:23 people can feel the benefits of these changes,
07:25 you know,
07:25 in very tangible ways,
07:27 um,
07:27 it was trying to help create something new and that was the excitement that we all had
07:32 because we were helping create
07:34 a Georgia uh uh that was something somewhat different
07:37 in terms of how the services were being delivered.
07:40 Cleana de nergetiki sectori
07:42 rasa dai puzna pinanurri the sagaa sakato sector
07:45 in telenaesuelareazala shieddaepecturat uh musha sakartolo shida esico
07:52 solio bank is the sakartolos uh tanam cholo lopezuelaze um
07:57 nishnolobani magali.
08:00 We played a huge role helping.
08:04 Georgia be uh a transit economy
08:08 for oil and gas.
08:10 We worked on that
08:12 uh feasibility study.
08:14 We were the key technical assistance
08:17 provider
08:18 to Georgia
08:19 for the Baku Tbilisi Chehan pipeline.
08:24 The East-West Highway was,
08:25 um,
08:25 was,
08:26 um,
08:26 uh,
08:27 was in some ways extremely critical because that was
08:29 to serve as the whole artery for transport connectivity
08:33 and to raise that transport infrastructure to,
08:35 um,
08:35 to international standards,
08:37 and that helped create a lot of jobs
08:39 in rural areas.
08:43 If you ask me what are the changes that I saw in my
08:46 limited 4 years,
08:48 it was less corruption.
08:49 The fight on corruption was really an initiative that was led by Georgia.
08:53 How did Georgia do that?
08:55 We wanted to extract certain lessons from the how-to
08:58 in terms of,
08:59 you know,
08:59 the role of leadership,
09:00 the role that technology played,
09:02 the role that civil society played in terms
09:04 of raising accountability of people in public service.
09:07 If you ask me,
09:08 one of my proudest moments,
09:10 proudest moments in IFC was actually
09:12 helping the Georgian banks overcome the aftermath
09:16 of the conflict which happened in 2008,
09:19 and the World Bank was actually asked by
09:20 the international community to be in a leadership role
09:23 in terms of pulling together
09:25 the damage needs assessment with all of the
09:28 international agencies and providing and coordinating the support.
09:32 To Georgia to rebuild after
09:35 after that
09:36 conflict,
09:38 for its part,
09:39 came in and invested $350 million US dollars in the top Georgian banks
09:43 in order to provide additional capital,
09:45 a liquidity buffer,
09:47 and to try and restore confidence.
09:48 We acted really quickly
09:51 from when the conflict started in 2008 to when we were delivering.
09:54 It was a period of only 3 months,
09:56 which is,
09:57 I think,
09:57 really,
09:58 really fast amount of time,
10:00 almost a world record.
10:04 You know,
10:04 I would also be remiss if I don't recall also the work
10:08 that we initiated,
10:09 which was quite innovative on
10:12 regional development.
10:13 These regional development programs have really served
10:16 to focus on building local infrastructure
10:20 and very importantly,
10:21 Georgia's cultural heritage sites,
10:24 serving to attract tourists
10:27 and ultimately helping to grow the local economies in these regions.
10:37 Italia Nishloi Matarimarebaatasamiso chiroskits programs organs.
10:45 Critical investments were made into
10:47 the uh hospital and healthcare infrastructure
10:50 to then
10:52 allow
10:53 people to be protected once the economy opened and case numbers starting to rise.
10:57 To this day,
10:58 I maintain that these very prudent policies
11:01 helped save countless
11:03 of lives.
11:06 The human capital program that we recently begun is another program that I'm
11:12 really,
11:12 really proud of,
11:13 and essentially it's a highly innovative and a novel project.
11:16 It's the largest 400 million project that we've ever done here in Georgia,
11:21 and it's the first time
11:22 that we actually take a sector-wide approach,
11:25 both looking at education,
11:27 health,
11:27 and social protection programs all at once.
11:32 We at the World Bank are truly honored and proud to have been a strong partner
11:38 since Georgia's restoration of independence.
11:40 The World Bank has invested $3.8 billion over 86 projects.
11:48 In fact,
11:48 poverty has been halved
11:51 since the World Bank has been active here in Georgia.
11:58 So.
12:25 Sakatsanissos gas sashi.
12:51 The remarkable progress speaks for itself and we've heard it,
12:55 but the journey is not over yet
12:57 and what I wanted to do was really uh
12:59 emphasize how we see Georgia building on this very,
13:02 very successful track record of economic reform as we know it also.
13:07 Strives for a greener,
13:08 more resilient
13:09 and always inclusive economy.
13:11 Innovation,
13:12 connectivity,
13:13 human capital,
13:14 climate,
13:16 and green growth will play in our view,
13:17 a very large role in Georgia's path to become an upper income country
13:22 and also support its EU integration aspirations.
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