On 26^th August, 2013 the Prime Minister of Georgia signed Decree N219 of the Government of Georgia “About the Form of the Electronic Request of Information and Proactive Disclosure of Public Information”, which went into force from 1^st September, 2013.

With this legal act, completely new proactive standards were established to ensure the transparency and accountability of state agencies. IDFI, as an active participant in the process of the developing the decree, would like to express its gratitude towards all participants and supporters for their long-term engagement in the process:

The Government of Georgia that took into consideration a majority of the recommendations and suggestions from the civil society and adopted new standards to ensure electronic request and proactive disclosure of public information;

The Ministry of Justice, particularly the Analytical Department and the Secretariat of the Inter-agency Anti-Corruption Council of Georgia, for its close cooperation with the civic society and preparation of the draft Decree of the Government in the discussion format;

Non–governmental and media organizations, as well as experts, who have been actively participating in defining and advocating the list of the content  of proactive disclosure, especially the Coalition for Media Advocacy, Transparency International – Georgia and the Georgian Young  Lawyers Association;

Our first donor organization, the National Security Archive in the George Washington University that allowed us to implement the pilot project on proactive disclosure;

Open Society Institute and Open Society Foundation – Georgia, for the support of our organization’s activities in this direction (started in 2010);

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Good Governance (G-3) program, for its four year facilitation and financial and program support at the final stage;

And the current and former staff members of IDFI, who have been laying the groundwork for these significant changes of the process for years ahead with their skills and effort.

We are sure that proactive disclosure of public information will ensure the establishment of a new, improved practice of transparency and accountability of the Government, in addition, the society will exercise supplementary mechanisms to control their government.  

See the Blogpost to read the analysis of the Government Decree.