Brief Summary of the Meeting

Date: 21 December 2020

Today the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) organized a High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) on the Sustainable Development Goal  7 Roadmap for Georgia.

The meeting was attended by the high-level delegates of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, Georgian National Energy and Water supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC), as well as the international organizations and the relevant sector representatives from different countries. 

The meeting was opened by Mr. Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN ESCAP, Mr. David Tvalabeishvili, Deputy Minister, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, and Mr. Gogita Todradze, Executive Director of Geostat. 
In his opening remarks, Mr. Gogita Todradze, Executive Director of Geostat expressed his gratitude to UN ESCAP and involved counterparts for the work done during the development of the SDG 7 roadmap for Georgia and expressed his readiness for the future cooperation. 

In his statement, Mr. Gogita Todradze highlighted the importance of sustainable energy for the social-economic well-being, economic development of the country, and improvement of the quality of life of citizens. According to him, the existence of a well-developed and coordinated national statistical system and therefore high-quality statistical data are crustal for the progress monitoring of the implementation of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Mr. Todradze, also stressed on the significance of the energy statistics data that has a significant role in monitoring and analyzing the tendencies in the energy sector. 

The Roadmap Developed by ESCAP is an important tool for planning the energy sector, which will enable Georgia to develop the right policies for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7.

The participants of the meeting reiterated the efforts of the experts involved in the process of developing the above-mentioned document as an example of successful cooperation and expressed hope for deepening their fruitful cooperation in the future.

Georgia became a member of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) on July 25, 2000. Besides, the Executive Director of Geostat is the chair Chair of the Bureau of the ESCAP Committee on Statistics from August 2020.