Tbilisi City Hall presents Action Plan to ensure open governance

Tbilisi City Hall has presented the Open Government Partnership Tbilisi Action Plan 2017, which envisages five key commitments that can make the functioning of the local government more transparent and effective. 

The five key commitments included: 

• Encouraging multi-discipline mechanism of Open Government and Civic Participation – development of Information and Civic Activities portal 'Smart Map'
• Introduction of Petition System to Tbilisi City Hall, referring to Electronic Petition
• Interactive accessibility to budget spending and introduction of civil control
• Implementation of Participatory Budget Mechanism, with the involvement of public and all interested sides  
• Introduction of civic control and accessibility mechanisms for municipal services

See the Open Government Partnership Tbilisi Action Plan 2017.

Georgia becomes the chair country of the Open Government Partnership in 2017. Photo by the President's press office. 

Tbilisi Government defined reform priorities aiming to create a unified system to increase level of information and participation of civic society, and to ensure governments accountability before the public,” the Action Plan read. 

Tbilisi City Hall stressed the Action Plan was developed through major involvement of the public, local non-governmental and foreign organisations. 

The Open Government Partnership was initiated by outgoing President of the United States Barack Obama at the UN General Assembly in 2010, when he urged foreign leaders to take responsibility for their government’s openness, their fight against corruption and increase of civic participation through more accountability and transparency.

 Currently, 69 countries are participating in partnership at central government level, including Georgia from 2011. 

Participant countries are obliged to support transparency, civic rights, the fight against corruption and use of new technologies in governance.

The Tbilisi Government adopted its Action Plan in November this year and it was presented to the international community at the Paris Open Government Partnership Summit yesterday.