On 9-10 December, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) organized online conference which had the format of virtual study tour. Virtual study tour aimed to exchange the experience on parliamentary openness; to raise the awareness of the representatives of the OGP Parliamentary Working Group of the Parliament of Sierra Leone on further involvement in OGP and to underline the importance of participation of the civil society in strengthening the parliamentary openness.

The speakers of the virtual study tour were: Joe Powel, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Open Government Partnership; Kacha Kuchava, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, and Chairperson of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance; Irina Pruidze, former Chairperson of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance; representatives of the parliament, and of the governmental and non-governmental sectors from Sierra Leone, and from various countries.

On December, 10, within the scopes of the virtual study tour, Davit Maisuradze, Open Governance Direction Head of the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), presented the speech on the institutionalization of the parliamentary openness, and the involvement of legislative bodies in OGP on the example of the Parliament of Georgia, highlighting the role of civil society in implementation of the OGP principles.

Please, find the Facebook link of the session on Institutionalization of the Parliamentary Openness here:  https://fb.watch/2jgrhsiiYu/.

IDFI is one of the leading civil society organizations in supporting the state, legislative and local bodies in implementing OGP principles. Currently, IDFI, within the frames of the EU-UNDP project “Consolidating Parliamentary Democracy in Georgia”, is implementing the project on Promoting Open Governance Principles at the Parliament of Georgia and Supreme Council of Ajara (SCA).