Project Title: Advocating Open Data Standards and Promoting Open Data Use in Georgia – Phase II
Donor: International Media Support (IMS)
Budget:  30,887 EUR
Duration: February 1 –September 30, 2023

Summary of Project and Activities:

Despite Georgia’s achievements in making more public data available over the past years, international studies and our analyses demonstrated that the country’s performance is low in terms of availability of beneficial ownership data. It is widely acknowledged that availability of beneficial ownership data is incremental for journalists and civil society representatives to track activities of companies and high-ranking officials as well as reveal potential corruption cases. Due to the importance of the issues, we consider it relevant to elaborate and propose Beneficial Ownership Data Standards to relevant public institutions and stakeholders.

On the other hand, IDFI plans to expand its awareness raising and outreach activities on the use of public data for holding the government accountable in the regions of Georgia, where activists, journalists, civil society actors, students, and other stakeholders necessitate experience and knowledge sharing on methods and tools for using data for government oversight activities. 

The project aims to continue advocating Open Data Standards (especially, Beneficial Ownership Data Standards) through sharing best practices and outreaching to relevant stakeholders. In addition, to ensure greater public use of public data, capacity building and outreach activities will be implemented for local civil society actors and stakeholders.

IDFI will implement the following activities in frames of the proposed project:

Activity 1. Preparatory stage  - At the first phase of the project, IDFI will plan/prepare all organizational or methodological documents/issues, which ensure that all project activities are implemented on time and with high quality.

Activity 2. Preparation and elaboration of Beneficial ownership data standards for Georgia – Based on international best practices and experience of several advanced countries in this direction (e.g. UK, Denmark, etc.), IDFI will prepare policy document/analytical paper on beneficial ownership standards (with the focus on open data standards - BOD) for Georgia.

Activity 3.    Beneficial Ownership Data Standards advocacy meeting/workshop -   IDFI will organize an advocacy meeting with the participation of Georgian civil society, public institutions, journalists, academia, business sector, and the international community to discuss the prospects for the elaboration and adoption of beneficial ownership standards in Georgia. IDFI will present its policy document/analytical paper prepared as part of the project.

Activity 4.   Preparing and conducting trainings in the regions -  Three one-day practical trainings will be held for journalists, activists, watchdogs and CSOs residing in three big cities outside Tbilisi.

Activity 5. Publishing and Updating Datasets on DataLab.Ge – In order to ensure that more relevant data is available for the Georgian public in open formats for their future use, IDFI will publish and update more datasets on its portal – DataLab.Ge. Three winners will be awarded financial awards at the end of the project.

Activity 6.  Open Data Contest -     In order to promote the use of open data for government accountability and the public good, IDFI will organize its annual contest on analytical articles on the topic of #Data4Change.

Project Activities and Budget

Contract