The meeting of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance and the Consultative Group was held on May 5.  At the meeting amendments to the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure required for implementation of the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan (2015-2016) were discussed.

Members of the Parliamentary Council and Consultative Group as well as the representatives of the Parliament of Georgia, non-governmental and international organizations attended the meeting. 

The meeting was opened by the Member of Parliament and the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Council Guguli Maghradze and the Director of Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), Chairperson of the Consultative Group Giorgi Kldiashvili. They highlighted achievements of Georgia within the Open Government Partnership (OGP). It should be noted that Georgia was elected as a co-Chair of the Steering Committee. It is of a tremendous importance that the final versions of the amendments to the Rules of Procedure are initiated and approved before the end of Parliament’s spring sessions.

IDFI’s Parliamentary Secretary Davit Maisuradze presented the updated project of amendments to the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure. They are aimed at fulfilling the action plan commitments initiated by IDFI (please, see the action plan).

Amendments to the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure were also presented by:

• Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association;
• National Democratic Institute;
• Transparency International – Georgia.

IDFI will present the final version of the document to the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance within next week.

Moreover, representatives of the “Good Governance Project” of USAID demonstrated results of a research undertaken on Parliamentary Webpage Users, they analyzed how to modify the Parliamentary webpage into a user-friendly model.

Transparency International – Georgia also presented a new project that the organization is implementing with the financial support of USAID. The project is intended to monitor and evaluate the implementation of Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan (2015-2016). A webpage will also be created to display status of action plan commitments during the implementation process.

IDFI is implementing UNDP and EU funded project titled “Supporting the Parliament of Georgia in Implementation of the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan”, which aims to assist the Parliamentary Council in implementing the Open Parliament Action Plan. Within the framework of the project, IDFI coordinates the activities of the Council and its Consultative Group.