Document Type: Studies

Georgia has a wide range of microclimates suitable for the cultivation of high-value agricultural products, such as hazelnuts, that have ready markets in numerous export markets. As Georgia is the 6th largest producer of in-shell hazelnuts globally, the 5th largest exporter of in-shell hazelnuts and the 3rd largest exporter of shelled hazelnuts, EPI can work with hazelnut producers and processors to leverage these market opportunities. By introducing a strategy that includes productivity increases, product quality improvements, food safety assurances and marketing activities, EPI can establish a model of highly productive hazelnut production and processing that satisfies the food safety requirements of high-value export markets. By doing so, EPI will directly contribute to industry growth, increased farm revenues, higher export sales and values and new job creation.

This report market research was conducted to identify the most promising opportunities for locally-owned apparel factories in the Georgia and expand their customer portfolio through targeted exports. The study focused on retail fashion apparel. Conducted in August 2011, it included desk and field research in Germany, Ukraine, and Turkey.

In recent years, local entrepreneurs have embarked on important efforts to revitalize Georgia’s once-thriving apparel sector. With one notable exception, Georgian-owned factories today are primarily supplying the domestic market. Several company owners, however, have expressed a desire to expand their customer base to include export. To assist these companies with up-to-date, actionable market intelligence, EPI contracted a market study for three high potential countries.

The methodology included shortlisting target countries within a reasonable trading sphere for Georgia. From an initial list of 33 countries in Europe, the Former Soviet Union, and Turkey, three countries were selected for further study: Germany, Ukraine, and Turkey. Extensive desk research on demographic, economic, and trade data plus the consultant’s knowledge of retail environments and industry sourcing patterns drove the selection of the three.

In August 2011, a market survey was undertaken in the three countries (Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich in Germany, Kyiv in Ukraine, and Istanbul in Turkey). Based on the current capabilities and equipment of the Georgian-owned factories, seven product categories were selected for the survey: printed T-shirts, polo shirts, ashed jeans, cargo pants, trench coats, wool and wool-like overcoats, and casual jackets such as parkas and anoraks. There were 451 individual products surveyed for brand, price (full retail), and country of origin. The survey was undertaken through visits to 107 retailers and covered 143 different local and international brands.

Based on the data collected, the following conclusions were drawn:

• German and Turkish brands and retailers represent excellent targets for Georgian-owned factories;
• The Ukraine can best be approached through German and northern European brands, including one notable Estonian brand;
• Printed T-shirts are not recommended as a target due to the dominance of low cost labor and vertically-integrated supplier countries, specifically Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan;
• Trench coats, wool, and wool-like overcoats represent an excellent target for selected Georgian-owned factories with extensive coat experience, or high quality military uniform experience; even the Turkish brands are sourcing their trench coats in China. With a recent (July 2011) 30% Turkish import tax on apparel from China, this represents a particularly good opportunity for Georgia;
• Cargo and similar casual pants represent a good retail opportunity for Georgian-owned factories accustomed to manufacturing woven uniform pants with assorted pockets and trim;
• European and Estonian brands currently sourcing in Eastern Europe/Balkan countries such as Bulgaria, Bosnia, Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia represent good targets for Georgian-owned factories due to the wage differential; these include brands such as those of Germany’s Betty Barclay Group, Estonian Baltika Group’s Monton brand, Italy’s Sixty Group, and Germany’s Luisa Cerano.
• Uniform, corporate and promotional attire, and sports apparel (golf, tennis, and hunting) also represent good market potential for Georgian-owned factories. However, further research is needed to identify specific companies.

While trade shows have historically been important in marketing to the apparel brands and retailers, a combination of industry sourcing consolidation, economics, and migration to electronic communications platforms have greatly diminished the importance and variety of apparel trade shows in the past 18-24 months. Georgian companies are therefore advised to develop a strategy and practice for cold calling, targeting high potential brands and retailers, to present their factories and capabilities. Contact information for many brands and retailers whose products were surveyed are included in the appendices to this report.

This report identifies a battery of workforce interventions supported by best international practices that can be deployed across priority agricultural and non-agricultural sectors of Georgia’s economy during EPI’s first year. The sectors targeted for workforce enhancement in 2011 are apparel, construction materials, transportation and logistics, wine tourism, blueberries, and agronomy. Additional recommendations continue these initiatives in year two and introduce others to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and other agricultural sectors. To realize these recommendations, CCID draws on a report by the director of the organization’s Georgian office that assesses the capacity of Georgian higher education and private training organizations to deliver needed education and training across the priority EPI sectors. The results of that report showed all of the PE and bachelor’s degree programs currently working in the EPI priority sectors and assessed the expertise, infrastructure, and other factors that affect the activities of specific PE centers, universities, and private training providers and suggest how they can be upgraded and supported by EPI to deliver new workforce programs and services.

Workforce initiatives in year one will include the following: CCID will start up new-worker and incumbent-worker trainings to serve Georgia’s growing apparel industry in Tbilisi and western Georgia. Sustainability of these initiatives is supported via the launch of teaching factories to be organized and managed by PE colleges in those regions. Learning materials adapted from these trainings will form the core of apparel specialties (programs) to be created for PE centers around Georgia. The other big initiative comprises three levels of training in wine education to be targeted on frontline hospitality staff working in Georgia’s international hotel and restaurant venues and in winery tasting rooms. Smaller initiatives, involving program consultation with U.S. workforce experts in the fields of transportation and logistics, construction materials, blueberries, and agronomy will result in the creation of additional PE programs and courses (subjects). Private training providers will also benefit from upgraded agricultural education training methods and training materials jointly created by Georgian and U.S. educational experts.

The current system of revenue appeals in Georgia lacks transparency and creates uncertainty for taxpayers and investors. The development of revenue appeals policy forms part of overall modernization of tax administration.

Key Challenges

The shift to an independent system whether tribunal or tax court will represent a major step forward for the Government of Georgia and the impact will be profound. Gaining political acceptance of the need for change will be the single greatest challenge. The head of tax policy in the MoF is convinced of the need for change. However, government support for the reform is essential. While the overall need for reform is fully in line with government thinking, the ideal solution might provide an uncomfortable degree of transparency but there are ways of managing this issue. The topic of reform is politically sensitive and a clear strategy has yet to evolve.

While the Prime Minister has indicated a need for reform, policy consideration has not yet matured to the level of publicly stated options. One of the likely triggers for reform will be the political desire for accession to the EU. Addressing the lack of independence of the judicial systems will be a positive measure as this will most certainly come under scrutiny – even more so since some recent EU member states have failed to progress the independence of judiciary to the satisfaction of the EU policy makers. The key political decision is not which system appeals model but the desire for independence. Recently introduced arbitration has successfully reduced the number of appeals cases but the numbers are once again on the rise.

The change to an independent system will require legislation and the implementation of a tax court would also require constitutional change.

Key Recommendations

• The revenue appeals process should be made independent.
• As a first step, implement a tribunal system as this is realistic and achievable by say January 1, 2013. Implementation of a Tax Court – a possible follow on option – is likely to take much longer due to the need for constitutional change and more rigid rules of procedure.
• The RS should continue the process of reviewing all appeals but this should be constrained within existing management structures. Ideally, this should be a quality review that includes consideration of new information provided by the taxpayer.
• The appeals council should be abolished and replaced by an effective internal review process in the RS with only policy cases being referred to the MoF.
• All requests for reconsideration or review of a tax decision that do not involve tax policy or interpretation of legislation should be handled solely by the RS. Referring review or appeals cases to the MoF that do not involve policy creates double handling and is of limited value.
• A new organizational structure – located outside the MoF and RS – will need to be developed along with support staff and ICT solutions, particularly for case handling and publication of rulings.
• Develop procedures for making appointments, remuneration, position descriptions, recruitment, and training of tribunal panel members or tax judges. Training will be required at the earliest opportunity.
• Tax legislation should be amended to allow for „best judgment‟ assessments by tax auditors. The safeguard against abuse of such a provision will be the independent tribunal process.
• Taxpayer who appeals should be required to clearly state the grounds of appeal thus ensuring that nonappealable cases do not enter the appeals process.

The Way Forward

• The government will need to give early consideration of the options for reforming the tribunal system if an implementation date of January 1, 2013, is to be achieved. This is the earliest reasonable date for implementation of a new appeals model.
• Legislative amendments will need to be prepared and any possible conflict with the constitution identified and resolved.
• Tribunal panel members will need to be identified and trained as early as possible. The initial training may need to be performed abroad. Initially nine panel members and a tribunal chairman should be appointed. This key activity is likely to require project or donor assistance.
• Organizational structure, roles and responsibilities, ICT solutions, media, and communication will need to be established along with budget and financial framework.
• A project implementation plan is found in “Appendix D. Additional Information.” This plan is based on the assumption of a realistic January 1, 2013, implementation date. Given government pressure for reform the timeline may need to be shortened but whatever date is chosen the same tasks will need to be performed.
• Await the government adopted solution for follow-on action.

This report evaluates the Regional Certification Mechanism (RCM) of the International Conference of the Great Lakes (ICGLR), and makes recommendations for the RCM’s improvement. This includes the following components of the RCM: (1) mine site inspections and certification, (2) chain of custody (CoC) systems, (3) export and certification; (4) mineral tracking database, (5) independent third party audits, and (5) the independent mineral chain auditor (IMCA).

Research was conducted between October–December 2015 and included a thorough literature review; desk-based interviews with over 40 stakeholders (including ICGLR staff, relevant national government officials; private sector stakeholder; industry associations, donor representatives and civil society) as well as in-country fieldwork in the DRC and Uganda.

The results conclude that the RCM provides the ICGLR with a solid basis for improved public sector governance of the tin, tantalum and gold (3TG) mineral trade in the Great Lakes Region. The assessment however, also concludes that the RCM and associated appendixes – which total more 155 pages – is in inconsistent, duplicative, overly complex, onerous and costly to implement and lacks a sustainable plan for funding. As a result, the credibility of the system itself, particularly from the perspective of downstream end users, is in urgent need of strengthening.

It is important to note that the drafting of the RCM manual in 2010/2011 was based on an amalgamation of the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) Certified Trading Chains (CTC) program and the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance. This combination may have suited Rwandan circumstances, but is far less suited to the circumstances in Eastern DRC where 3TG supply chains are orders of magnitude more complex, and state capacity far more limited.

Furthermore, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance is intended to provide a model for the implementation of due diligence by the private sector. In contrast, the CTC provides a model for state and donor-funded projects implementing certification schemes, primarily by BGR. The blending of the two models in the RCM has resulted in an unwieldy manual that confuses private and public sector responsibilities. It also means the forms used for certification are complicated and unclear. A single model ICGLR certification form – developed on the basis of a streamlined manual – would go a long way to improving the prospects of more cost effective and credible mine site certification. In particular, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance should provide the basis for that streamlining. The ‘progress criteria’ that form part of the present RCM should be made an individual member state responsibility, or made part of the formalization tool of the ICGLR’s RINR.

The need to clarify the boundaries of private and public sector responsibility has also become increasingly clear as there is an unresolved issue regarding the status of private sector audits for the ICGLR, and the status of RCM audits for the private sector in fulfilling its due diligence obligations. The report concludes now is the time to streamline and harmonize the RCM on the basis of OECD Guidance, clarify private and public sector responsibilities, and increase the RCM’s credibility and cost effectiveness.

Additionally, it is critical to ensure the RCM is self-financing before a deadline is imposed for regional implementation. Particularly given the falling international price of minerals, exporters are likely to resist a new levy on exports to fund RCM certification unless it is matched by a reduction in the cost of the iTSCi levy, or that of any other provider. Moreover, if RCM certification becomes mandatory in the region before audit harmonization has been established, this will in effect impose an audit duplication requirement on 3TG exporters in the region. We therefore recommend that private sector and RCM audits be harmonized – or mutually recognize one another – before making RCM audits mandatory. Finally, this report concludes if the RCM is to reduce conflict financing to any significant degree, it must be able to impact the trade in artisanal gold. The gold industry, however, appears unlikely to develop its own Chain of Custody tracking and due diligence assurance for ASM gold in the region. This makes government, private sector and NGO efforts at establishing the responsible gold pilot projects essential. Member States need to support such efforts and address the fiscal and legal circumstances to support a viable RCM conformant model for artisanal gold; likewise an ICGLR RCM ‘gold supplement’ should be drafted.

In sum, while significant progress has been in establishing various elements of the RCM, as with any system it must evolve and adapt if it is to remain credible and effective. To address these challenges, the report strongly recommends that Member States adjust certain aspects of the RCM’s scope and procedures and identifying a sustainable plan for the sustained financing of the mechanism into the future. The results of these recommendations are anticipated to yield significant improvements in the RCM’s effectiveness, efficiency, and credibility.

This LGSA Women’s Land Rights Study serves as a consolidated resource to help guide the gender-responsive implementation of Liberia’s 2013 Land Rights Policy (LRP). It is based on legal research of the formal legal system; original, exploratory field research in five communities spanning three counties; and secondary research drawing primarily from research conducted under USAID’s Liberian land projects.

This report begins with an overview of the basic legal framework that establishes women’s land rights and then proceeds to a description of six primary thematic topics related to women’s land rights and participation in land governance: 1) land tenure systems; 2) marriage/de facto unions; 3) inheritance; 4) land governance; 5) access to justice and dispute resolution; and 6) concessions.

LAND TENURE SYSTEMS

The authors explored four major types of tenure arrangements in this report: customary land rights, hybrid land rights as represented by Tribal Certificates (TCs), private land rights and public land rights held in concession agreements. Within each of these arrangements, women’s access, use, control and overall rights to land differ from (and tend to be less secure than) those of men, although women’s ownership of private land has existed for settler women for many decades in the coastal region and may be increasing in urban areas across Liberia. This section of the report discusses what these differences are, and how they affect women’s ability to access, use, control and manage land.

MARRIAGE/DE FACTO UNIONS

The civil law of Liberia provides for three types of marriage — civil, customary and presumed, each with its own implications for property. Within the context of marriage, the research team made a particular effort to learn more about women’s land rights in the context of de facto unions or long-term cohabitation. Marriage informality is a rising trend in the areas visited by the authors; in these areas more than half of marriage-like relationships (and in some areas many more) have not been formalized, according to custom or civil law. Because de facto unions exist in a legal vacuum—given widespread confusion about legal framework for presumptive marriages — women and children in such arrangements have only tenuous rights to land, typically obtained through the husband’s male lineage and family.

INHERITANCE

The study explores several topics related to inheritance, including inheritance by wives and inheritance by daughters. According to participants in the five communities visited, land inheritance by widows is often contingent on their willingness to marry a surviving male relative of their deceased husband. There are also continuing cases of forced widow inheritance, in which a widow is required to marry a male relative of her deceased spouse, even though this practice is illegal. Daughters—as compared with sons—in the areas visited seem to rarely receive their inheritance. When daughters inherit land, their rights are often restricted to housing and use rights to farm short-term crops.

LAND GOVERNANCE

More could be done to ensure gender-responsive land governance in the law, in key governance institutions, and in practice. Women are generally excluded from groups that make decisions about land governance at the community level. Women’s role in official land governance institutions is limited when compared to men’s roles, with fewer women in positions of decision-making authority in both the customary system and the statutory governance system (including at the municipal, county and national
levels). Women are also disadvantaged due to norms requiring male accompaniment, lack of consultation and under-recognition of women’s land rights and inheritance rights.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Women’s access to justice and dispute resolution is closely related to their position in land governance. Women are generally excluded from groups that make decisions about land at the community level. However, women who hold positions of authority within these institutions (such as District Commissioners or officers with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection) often find themselves in high demand for assistance in mediating land conflicts involving women. When land disputes arise, many rural people have trouble accessing formal justice systems because of barriers related to cost, literacy and travel, and rural women experience more challenges in overcoming the barriers, for example, due to higher rates of illiteracy and additional gender-specific barriers, such as social norms that discourage what is seen as acrimonious behavior from women. Without this access, women must either resort to informal dispute resolution (in which they are not well-represented) or let disputes go unresolved.

CONCESSIONS

Concessions are a major concern for women and men in communities who live and farm in and near concession areas. Participants in the focus areas related that concessions have often led to displacement and loss of access to traditional farming and forest lands. Like most laws, those governing concessions are gender-neutral, but impact women in substantially different ways, and frequently in more adverse ways than men.

The overall goal of the USAID/Kosovo Property Rights Program (PRP) is to improve the property rights regime in Kosovo, strengthen the rule of law, and increase economic growth and investment.  The Property Rights Program has four objectives: 1) Better Coordination; 2) Improved Court Procedures; 3) Enhance Women’s Rights to Use Property, and 4) Improved Communication and Understanding of Property Rights.  While the primary focus of this report is on Objective 3, the findings and recommendations cut across all of the objectives.

The law related to both gender and property in Kosovo is modern and egalitarian.  The problems that exist in law with regard to women’s property rights are due to 1) inconsistencies in existing laws and 2) problems in practice, specifically the differential application of the law and bureaucratic strategies that allow the exclusion of women.  The most significant inconsistencies in law pertaining to property rights are the different claims on resources that spouses have in legally registered marriages and ‘factual’ marriages and the lack of clarity with regard to the proper legal venue for uncontested cases of inheritance.  There is additional confusion as to whether uncontested inheritance cases can be processed by both the courts and notaries.

Many people in Kosovo do not go to the trouble of formalizing rights to immovable property.  As a result, there is an overall problem in terms of a lack of engagement with legal processes regarding property ownership and transfer.  When legal processes are used, the dominant issues in terms of the application of law pertaining to the inheritance law and the usage of the clause on renunciation.  Women frequently renounce their inherited property in favor of brothers and uncles for cultural reasons and in adherence to Albanian customary law.  While no formal statistics on renunciation exist, and many women willingly renounce their inheritance rights, anecdotes abound regarding women who are excluded from inheritance as a result of coercion and subterfuge.  An additional problematic aspect of the inheritance law in this social context is the ability of heirs to renounce the property rights of minor children without any external oversight as to whether the best interests of the child are considered.

These legal problems are exacerbated by bureaucratic difficulties at the municipality level in ascertaining the legal heirs of a deceased person.  There are many opportunities in the inheritance process for the exclusion of legal heirs without their knowledge or consent.  This causes particular problems for women who by all accounts are most likely to be excluded.  Moreover, women’s engagement in the economy of Kosovo is extremely low in comparison to neighboring states which is somewhat surprising given educational levels that are similar to those of men.  Women face higher levels of unemployment and given the low levels of formalized capital that they can access their self-employment opportunities are limited.

Recommendations suggested below are a result of this initial assessment of property and gender in Kosovo.  They are intended to inform program design and identify areas where there is a significant absence of information.  Some of the recommendations intentionally cut across all PRP objectives or relate to work being done by other organizations and donors.  Additionally, a few of the recommendations specifically relate to legal and policy changes that would need to be made by the Assembly of Kosovo or by the appropriate government agency.  Recommendations are divided into four different categories:  law and court processes; training and capacity building in municipal administration; economic engagement for women; and, knowledge creation.

This report presents the findings from the first phase of research conducted by the USAID/Kosovo Property Rights Program (PRP) in four pilot courts (Courts of Merit – CoM) in Kosovo.  That research has been directed at identifying case flow and case management bottlenecks arising in the adjudication of property cases, with the ultimate aim of designing and introducing improvements to courts’ processes and to procedural law in order to enable courts to adjudicate property claims more efficiently.

PRP designed and applied a methodology of Differentiated Case Management (DCM) to develop substantive and procedural data elements with which to disaggregate and analyze court procedures to process and resolve property cases in order to formulate recommendations to improve efficiency and court performance. PRP applied this analysis to a total of 1, 276 property rights cases that were filed and disposed within a 30-month period (2013-2015).

PRP has found that on average these cases were disposed over a considerable length of time that far exceeds international standards.  PRP has also found that the courts are not using basic case management techniques for managing their caseflow.

Based on these findings, PRP has identified the Next Steps to be undertaken – to introduce basic case management techniques and methods within the CoM, which will then make it possible to apply a more refined DCM analysis to the courts’ caseflow and develop further specific recommendations for improving the efficiency of the CoM in adjudicating property cases.

Data from the Kosovo Cadastral Agency (KCA) indicate that approximately 30% of all property rights in Kosovo are registered in the name of deceased rights holders. Even this figure could be a low estimate. Unofficial data from the Register of Unpermitted Construction indicate that up to 50% or more applicants seeking to formalize rights in unpermitted buildings cannot demonstrate rights in the land upon which the buildings are constructed because the underlying parcels are registered in the name of deceased rights holders. Rights remain registered in the name of deceased persons because inheritance proceedings have not been initiated to formally transfer property rights from the deceased to his or her heirs.

A National Baseline Survey on Property Rights conducted in 2015 found that 50% of the respondents consider that rights in property are rights possessed by their family without having gone through inheritance proceedings; while 58% believe that property rights are based on court decisions and 49% cited duly executed contracts as constituting property rights. It is not surprising that 57% of respondents in the same survey reported that their birth family had never initiated an inheritance proceeding.

If government initiatives encouraging citizens to register their rights in property and to regularize unpermitted constructions successfully change Kosovars’ attitudes and behaviors about formalizing rights in property, there will likely be an increase in the number of inheritance proceedings initiated. The current legal framework governing uncontested inheritance claims contemplates that inheritance proceedings are initiated shortly after the death of the decedent (immediate inheritance proceedings). In practice, however, Kosovars have not initiated inheritance proceedings in a timely manner. As a result, a significant percentage of proceedings moving forward will be initiated long after the death occurred (delayed inheritance proceedings).

These two types of proceedings are distinguished by the length of time that has elapsed from the occurrence of death until the initiation of proceedings. During the intervening years between the death of the rights holder and the initiation of (delayed) inheritance proceedings, it is not uncommon for the number of descendants of the rights holder (potential heirs) to have grown to thirty or more. It is also not uncommon for some of the potential heirs to have taken possession of the deceased’s land parcel, constructed their homes on it and exercised de facto rights over the property.

Uncontested inheritance proceedings comprise a two-step process: review by a court or notary of the potential heirs’ documents and issuance of a decision or act verifying their rights to inherit; and the registration of the verified rights in the Municipal Cadastral Office (MCO). For the government’s formalization initiatives to have an impact, uncontested inheritance proceedings and property rights registration processes must be improved to make them more streamlined, efficient, predictable and affordable, to ensure that citizens already predisposed not to formalize their property rights do not encounter further disincentives to doing so.

The purpose of this report is to critically assess provisions in the legal framework governing uncontested inheritance claims and the registration of property rights to identify potential options for making these improvements. The report also assesses the practices of both courts and notaries to identify and propose potential approaches for strengthening due process safeguards to ensure that all potential heirs, and especially women, can fully exercise their rights to inherit property. Findings from these assessments are then applied to the four most common scenarios or “fact patterns” emerging from delayed inheritance claims to inform recommendations for developing new procedures responsive to the circumstances unique to these claims to help increase efficiency, reduce disincentives to formalization and strengthen due process safeguards.