Recommendations of IDFI for the OGP Georgia Action Plan 2016-2017

Open Government Georgia Forum has started developing new commitments for the OGP Georgia Action Plan 2016-2017 in cooperation with the public entities and the non-governmental organizations.
In particular, members of the OGP Georgia Forum had an opportunity to present their initiatives and recommendations before March 15 and ask for making additions to the staff of the Forum. Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), which Co-Chairs the Forum with the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice, presented its recommendations to the members of the Forum and demonstrated the list of the entities, addition of which will enrich the Forum and enlarge its scope of work.

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OGP Forum Discussed Commitments of the New OGP Action Plan

On March 2, 2016, 17th meeting of the Open Government Partnership Georgia Forum was held at the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. The Forum was attended by the representatives of the public agencies, non-governmental and international organizations. Representatives of Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) – Director Giorgi Kldiashvili, Parliamentary Secretary Davit Maisuradze and Project Coordinator Saba Buadze – attended the meeting, led by Zurab Sanikidze, Head of the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice and Giorgi Kldiashvili, Director of IDFI.

Mid-Term Analysis of OGP Action Plan Georgia 2014-2015

On September 25th, 15th working meeting of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Forum took place in Tbilisi Marriot. Representatives of the non-governmental, international and public organizations attended the meeting. Among them were the representatives of the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI): the director of IDFI and OGP Forum Chair – Giorgi Kldiashvili, Chairman of the Board of IDFI – Levan Avalishvili and the project coordinator – Davit Maisuradze.

The OGP Forum Secretariat, which is formed by the staff of Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice, presented the mid-term analysis on fulfillment of the commitments laid out in the OGP 2014-2015 Georgia Action Plan. The report reviews fulfillment of commitments by June 2015.

There are 27 commitments in the OGP 2014-2015 Georgia Action Plan, 9 from them have been completely fulfilled, 11 are mostly fulfilled and 7 are partially fulfilled.

The last meeting of OGP forum in 2014

The last meeting of OGP forum 2014 was on December 3.  The members discussed about monitoring and evaluating 2014-2015 National Action Plan. Forms will be filled quarterly by institutions, which, according to OGP-‘s 2014-2015 National Action Plan, are responsible to implement the commitments. Authorities will point out the stage of implementation of each activity. The schedule will be submitted to the Secretariat and the assessment of civil society and Secretariat rate will be attached.

“It will be a mechanism to identify problems in order to see what’s going on, what kind of problems exist during implementation process and how we can help with our resources”- said Rusudan Mikhelidze, Co-chair of the forum and head of the analytical department of the Ministry of Justice.

The members of the board, the archive member of Internal Affairs Davit AlaverdaSvili noted that it is desirable to use the 5-step system, instead of 4-step, to get a more accurate assessment and not leave the ability of broad interpretations. Also, there were considerations from other members of the forum that, it is important to define the potential meaning of each step, which will make the assessment mechanism more objective.

In the end it was decided that for the first quarter of the monitoring framework 4-step system will be offered for Open Government Secretariat. After piloting quarter, the forum will take a decision about using 5-step system.

In addition to the approval of the monitoring reports, the chairman of the forum “the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information” (IDFI) Giorgi Kldiashvili gave information to the members about the obligations which will be implemented in 2014. As he noted, several obligations already performed. For example, the Supreme Court issued a  surveillance statistic, Audit Office publishes financial reports of political parties in readable format, machines of voice of the consumers were placed in House of Justice and the web page of the Ministry of Internal Affairs became adaptable for blind people.

The forum was about the progress which was implemented by several agencies. Including Data Exchange Agency (DEA), DEA should create date portal, data.gov.ge and develop my.gov.ge portal. As the spokesman Nika Gagnidze said they send several letters to the public authorities for the purpose of collecting date, but about 20 agencies did not answer it. The agency asked OGP forum to help in communication process. As Nika Gagnidze noted, creating user’s manual and training of representatives are planned. After those activities, the process of placing data in the portal will be easier for the members of the agency.

The representative of Public Service Development Agency (PSDA), Nana Tsiklauri spoke about the process of transformation of public libraries. As she noted, the process of opening renew libraries was delayed due to technical problems and two of them will be open in 2015.

Implementing education service was planned for 2014 but this obligation was added to the action plan at last and terms recorded hastily. In fact, this service will be available from May 2015.

The next session of the forum will be on 22 January 2015.

Open Government Partnership Forum Meeting at Vere Palace

 

On June 6, hotel “Vere Palace” hosted the OGP forum meeting, held within the frames of the Anti-Corruption Council. The meeting was attended by the representatives of government, parliament and NGO sector. Meeting aimed at discussing the commitments taken under the 2014-15 action plan according to the recommendations, elaborated by the NGOs and comments, provided by the steering committee of OGP.