In the framework of Awareness activities carried out by IDFI (Institute for Development of Freedom of Information) in 2010 organization share information about the following issues: Freedom of Information, access to public information and e-governance;

On October 23 – through 26 IDFI analysts took part in the First International Conference “Georgia in the XX Century: In the Files of the Georgian Security Archive”. Speakers discussed topics such as openness of the archives, archives of the Soviet period, archival documents and more importantly, scientific research studies conducted based on these documents;

The participant countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia and the USA) of international conference “Freedom of Information at Caucasus Region“ (8-11 May, 2009) discussed several solutions, such as creating joint strategy and effective network due to answer the problems in the region. The meeting covered the issues of Soviet influence at representative countries. Citizens did not have access to information and the vast majority of the population does not know about the Law on Information.

On June 18th, 2009 twelve members of Council of Europe signed the Convention on Access to Official Documents. As it was mentioned during the meeting, this convention can provide legal basis, and ensure minimal standards for accessing information. Despite of the fact that there were controversial opinions about the treaty NGOs from signature countries requested ratification of the convention;

In the framework of the Project “Public information on-line database Public information registry” IDFI conducted training about the practice of requesting public information and sharing international experience on October 22nd, 2010. During the training, it became obvious, that the main problem, related to requesting public information, is low request from society, which can be caused by lack of information itself.

For sharing international experience, it is interesting to get familiar with the research of Russian Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (Assessment of Openness of the Information at Official Websites about State Procurement). As it was mentioned in research, state procurement in Russia was 4 trillion RUB; In order to create proper environment for competition, websites should publish information about any biddings and auctions; It will result in optimization of procurement and decreasing the level of corruption;

In order to assess current situation of Georgia in terms of freedom of information and e-participation Institute shared data of several famous research centers, such as Freedom House, Caucasus Analytical Digest , UN E-government survey, Transparency International Georgia about access to public information;

In conclusion, awareness activities carried out throughout, aimed to get familiar with organization activities, active involvement of different seminars or conferences, assessment of Georgia’s situation;