Tbilisi Hosts the Open Government Partnership Global Summit
As lead co-chair of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Georgia hosted the 5th OGP Global Summit in Tbilisi, Georgia on July 17–19.
The summit provided an excellent opportunity for leaders from OGP’s 76 participating countries, local governments, and beyond to exchange ideas on how they are making their governments more transparent, accountable, and responsive to citizens.
Representatives from OGP’s 96 national and local participants — heads of state and governments, ministers, public servants, members of parliament, local authorities, civil society representatives, international foundations, researchers, academia and journalists — gathered in Tbilisi to promote their achievements and discuss the challenges in upholding the principles of open government.
The OGP 2018 Global Summit focused on civic engagement, fighting against corruption, and public service delivery. “The objectives of the Summit are to promote peer learning, inspire OGP reformers to raise the level of ambition, and push the open government agenda forward to address new challenges and improve the lives of citizens around the world,” the OPG official page reads.
Georgia assumed the chairmanship of the OGP Steering Committee in September 2017, which meant that for the first time Georgia became the chair of the OGP for a one year term taking the role from France.
During its OGP chairmanship Georgia’s strategic goals are:
- Strengthen co-creation and citizen engagement;
- Advancing transparency and the fight against corruption;
- Generating innovation in public service delivery;
- Building a better partnership.
Georgia is among a small number of countries where all branches of the government are involved in the OGP process. Along with the Government of Georgia, the OGP Action Plan is being implemented by the Tbilisi City Hall and the Georgian Parliament. The Supreme Court of Georgia actively participates in the process, proactively publishing the information about the court activities and working on development of a uniform rule for publishing the court decisions.
What makes Georgia a distinguished member of the Open Government Partnership?
· The Government of Georgia is one of the most open and transparent governments among the Partnership Member States since 2013. The Resolution of the Government of Georgia obliges public authorities to proactively publish public information in electronic form, without waiting for the request;
· The open governance is the Georgian Government’s basic principle of administration of the country. Since 2012, the large-scale reforms have being implemented in Georgia for the purpose of establishing institutional democracy. The main goal of these reforms is to establish effective state institutions, increase their transparency and openness;
· Georgia is a country with one of the lowest risk factors for corruption in the world — According to Trace International survey, Georgia is ranked 13th among 199 countries in the world, and is ahead of countries like France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Great Britain and Austria;
· In terms of availability of public services, Georgia is exemplary not only regionally but also worldwide — services are accessible, fast and comfortable not only in big cities, but also in villages, thanks to public service halls and community centers.
· Georgia has an exemplary mechanism of participation of citizens in the OGP processes — the Open Government Forum — Georgia, which provides a continuous dialogue between the Government, NGOs and the public;
· The portal “mygov.ge” is a simplified communication mechanism between the state and citizen. The citizens of Georgia can access more than 70 services from this website without leaving home. The portal can be accessed via tablets and smartphones.
The reform in the field of public access to information in Georgia was named among seven most successful projects at the Annual London Summit of the Open Government Partnership in 2013.
Open Government Partnership is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. In the spirit of multi-stakeholder collaboration, OGP is overseen by a Steering Committee including representatives of governments and civil society organisations.
To become a member of OGP, participating countries must endorse a high-level Open Government Declaration, deliver a country action plan developed with public consultation, and commit to independent reporting on their progress going forward.