Meetings with students for awareness raising on OGP continue

Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) conducted another workshop with students about Open Government Partnership (OGP) on October 4^th, 2014.  Students of different Universities attended the meeting, held at the Conference Hall of In-Depth Reporting and Advocacy Center.  The workshop was provided in the framework of the USAID Good Governance in Georgia Program (G-3) supported project.

They had been participated in the trainings held within the framework of IDFI project “Enhancing E-skills among Young People”. The goals of these trainings were to raise awareness about E-participation and improve practical skills.

It should also be noted  that the students has a chance to observe government activities and write blog posts based on their monitoring results. The workshop about OGP was another platform for analyzing Government activities.

During the workshop Giorgi Kldiashvili, the director of IDFI and co-chairman of  Open Government Georgia Forum emphasized the importance, goals and challenges of the partnership. He explained to them what kind of commitments has Georgia taken and which state agencies are responsible for implementing these commitments.

Giorgi Kldiashvili explained how OGP works and what are the discussion topics in the framework of regional meetings and annual summits. Giorgi also showed videos, which described OGP activities and achievements throughout a year.

Students concern was about the mechanism OGP have to monitor action plan’s implementation, what can be the result if a country does not accomplish its commitments. Giorgi Kldiashvili mentioned that joining OGP is not obligation, it is just a state will, and countries take commitments themselves. Therefore, implementation is country’s prestige. Besides, Giorgi Kldiashvili mentioned that when country joins OGP, it must meet some requirements, if country does not fulfill them the exclusion from the partnership might be set in agenda,

The director of IDFI said that OGP’s goal is to develop citizens’ life; therefore, civil society should be involved in monitoring of commitment implementation process.

Participants of the workshop discussed how can they spread more information about OGP to increase  engagement of people in these activities.

Giorgi Kldiashvili reviewed 27 commitments, which should be implemented by 16 public institutions the framework of National Action Plan 2014-2015.

Open Government Georgia Forum Holds its Next Meeting

Forum meeting Photo: Ministry of Justice

Open Government Georgia Forum organized another workshop on 3^rd of October. Co-chairman of the forum Rusudan Mikhelidze told members about meetings which was held in September within the framework of OGP. During this period high level event was held where prime minister of Georgia Irakli Gharibashvili gave a speech.  For the next day, there was OGP steering committee meeting. Georgia as a new member of committee took place first time. The Minister of Justice, Thea Tsulukiani represented Georgia through the workshop. Georgia was elected as a member of the Steering Committee in 2014.

Mikhelidze  said it was important that the Prime Minister himself has been involved in the partnership and the high level of support for the principles expressed in the OGP.

Mikhelidze  explained to the forum members how the Steering Committee works. There are three under-committee: Peer Learning and Support, Criteria and Standards and Governance and Leadership Subcommittee.  Forum co-chairman said the committee is likely to be willing to Georgia, where it will be possible to share their experiences and best practice in other countries.

Mikhelidze said the steering committee also discussed how they could encourage countries that have not submitted their plans, in addition, it was decided to have its own OGP-‘s ambassadors. Their function will be to disseminate information about the partnership, trust, and respect increase. It is still unclear how ambassadors will be selected.

Ms. Mikhelidze spoke about OGP- Working Group and noted that totally there are of 5 groups – Fiscal Openness Working Group, Legislative Openness Working Group, Access to Information Working Group, Open Data Working Group and Openness in Natural Resources Working Group. According to her, it would be nice if the forum members will be actively involved in the work of these groups.

In addition, Georgia is scheduled to hold a meeting within the framework of the OGP.

“We believe that this is a regional summit. Now we go to the Government after consultation with the Minister of Justice and consider this issue, we must evaluate what resources we have and prepare well, “- said Ms. Mikhelidze.

The co-chairmen of the forum, the Director he Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) George Kldiashvili said that OGP-‘s annual summit should be held in the fall of 2015, which means that the preparatory work should start very soon.

Members of the Forum were interested in the ongoing implementation of the Action Plan. Under the plan, September 20, the Supreme Court should publish surveillance quarterly statistics but there is still not information about this process on the webpage.The representative of the Court said that the statistics will be published after 10 days as a part of other quarterly information.

The forum members received information about an independent evaluation mechanism (IRM) process as well. The report is being  prepared by the representative of Transparency International Georgia, Lasha Gogidze. He shared his IRM- research standards and milestones, which runs through the end of the researcher.

The participants of the Forum agreed that the Action Plan is adopted and reduced, the intensity of the Forum will change and it will take place in every month instead of every two months to monitor the implementation process, it will be important issues in the case of additional lighting in the meeting.

At the end of the forum members saw the video about  OGP. The Video was made within the framework of IDFI project,  funded by USAID Good Governance in Georgia Program (G-3)

Government of Georgia Decree on OGP National Action Plan (2014-2015)

On September 18^th, 2014, the Government of Georgia published the Decree (#557) about National Action Plan of OGP (2014-2015). The Action Plan comprises 27 commitments to be implemented by 16 responsible agencies until the end of 2015.

The first challenge that the Action Plan commitment will address is public service improvement, under which the Ministry of Justice and the Public Service Hall will implement several projects, for example, making the insurance policy – will be available in Public Service Hall.“Voice of the Consumer”, which will allow citizens to directly participate in improving PSH service quality, also, there will be drive-up windows of JUSTdrive at the Tbilisi PSH allowing citizens to save time when acquiring the service.

Within the challenge of Community Centers will develop, public libraries will be modernized and Citizen’s Portal my.gov.ge will be improved by adding new services. The open data portal data.gov.ge will be created as well.

Government of Georgia

The second challenge is to increase public integrity. Precisely within the challenge transparency and impartiality of civil service recruitment process will be made, freedom of information act will elaborated and the government of Georgia will create the petitions portal I-change.ge. Also, the surveillance statistics should be published and the public officials’ assetdeclaration monitoring system should be set up.

The third challenge of the OGP Action Plan is more effectively managing public resources, in response, government should try to establish mechanism to inform the public on budgetary processes and increased accessibility of national archives, besides, electronic catalogues of the documents preserved in the Ministry of Internal Affairs Archive (former KGB of Georgia documents) should be created and published.

The last, fourth challenge is to create safer communities. To establish an interactive statistics and crime mapping, citizens can see what is the level of crime (via the internet) in the desire area. In addition, the challenge will be set up within the 112 (Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia Emergency and Operative Response Center) to connect to a variety of channels. For people with disability whole process will be easier and even then, connection will be possible if the mobile device is out of coverage area.

The National Action Plan 2014-2015 is a joint product of an intense cooperation of government and civil society. Citizens of Georgia also participated in the process of elaborating the AP through Public Consultations in 2014. The AP was elaborated within the national coordination mechanism of the Open Government Partnership in Georgia – Open Government Georgia’s Forum (Forum). It includes the results of public consultations conducted throughout the whole county.

Workshop with TSU Students about OGP

Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) held a workshop for students of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. The topic of the meeting was Open Government Partnership and commitments, which should be implemented within the framework of Georgia’s Action Plan 2014-2015. The workshop was attended by students of Journalism and Mass communication faculty. The meeting was held within the framework of the project fund by USAID Good Governance in Georgia (G3) Program.

Giorgi Kldiashvili, the director of IDFI spoke with students about the importance, goals and challenges of the Partnership. He explained to them what kind of commitments have been taken by Georgia and which state agencies are responsible for implementing these commitments.

Giorgi Kldiashvili covered all the commitments of previous Action Plan, which have already been carried out. He defined liabilities, which should be accomplished by the end of 2015 and explained how they are related with citizens.

Students have paid special attention to the commitment about online asset declarations of public officials. They expressed their interest toward the ways of checking reliability of the information that officials publish about their property.

The main topic of the discussion with students was citizens’ participation. e.g. in state budget planning. Giorgi Kldiashvili explained to participants the meaning of civil society and how citizens can have influence on the government with their participation and activism.

OGP Celebrated Its Three-Year Anniversary

On 24^th of September Open Government Partnership celebrated its three-year anniversary by organizing several events where Georgia was involved.

OGP civil society meeting

On September 24th meeting of OGP civil society leaders was held at the Head Office of the Ford Foundation in New York.

The three main topics covered by the agenda were:

1) to review some early successes that civil society actors have achieved through OGP and consider how we can use the OGP platform to advance progressive agendas;

2) to share ideas on how to broaden the base of reformers that push for more open and accountable government;

3) to update the participants on the new OGP 4 year strategy, especially on the plans for civil society engagement.

OGP SCO leaders’ Meeting

Giorgi Kldiashvili, the director of Institute for Development of Freedom of information (IDFI) presented at the talk show. The meeting was hosted by leaders of international organizations such as Ford Foundation, CIVICUS: the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Transparency International (TI), Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) and Twaweza.

Event with Higher Officials

At the same day, on 24^th of September the high level event titled “Open Government Partnership: Citizen Action, Responsive Government” was held within the framework of the 69th United Nations General Assembly. At this event OGP was reaffirmed by the presence of 11 Heads of State and Government, over 30 Ministers, and more than 300 civil society leaders from around the world.

9 Leaders of state gave speeches, among them Irakli Gharibashvili, the Prime Minister of Georgia. He discussed the initiatives and innovative decisions reflected in the second action plan of “Open Government – Georgia 2014-2015” The prime minister said that Georgian government’s aim is to become even more accessible and accountable to citizens while empowering them.  Georgia has some of the most innovative solutions to public procurement, public financial disclosure, and most importantly, public service delivery, said Irakli Gharibashvili in his speech.

Open Government Awards

After the leaders’ speeches OGP announced the winners of the first annual Open Government Awards, celebrating successful programs to increase citizen engagement in policy-making. Thirty-three countries participated the 2014 awards competition, and the top three finishers were as follows: third place was given to the Philippines for the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting program, Montenegro is on the second place for a public engagement campaign called “Be Responsible,” and Denmark achieved the first place for a Statutory Elected Senior Citizens’ Council.

1ST place – Denmark

OGP Steering Committee Meeting

OGP’s events continued the following day. On 25^th of September OGP Steering Committee meeting was held where new elected members, including Georgia, were involved. OGP strategy 2015-2018, results and  future initiatives were discussed at the meeting.

The Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani represents the government of Georgia in the Committee. She talked about implemented commitments by Georgia. Mrs Tsulukiani said that Georgia is advanced country in various directions concerning to accountable, openness accessibility and civil society participation.

The OGP is governed by the Steering Committee consisting of the equal number of government and non-governmental organization representatives.

Ministet of Justice og Georgia Tea Tsulukiani at steering commette meeting

The Result of OGP

Since the launch of OGP in 2011, the initiative has grown from eight to 65 participating countries, and from a handful of founding civil society leaders to hundreds of organizations engaged in OGP around the world. OGP countries have made over 2,000 open government reform commitments as part of 87 National Action Plans.