On May 7th 2015, 13th meeting of the Open Government Forum was held in the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. The forum was chaired by the Head of the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia - Zurab Sanikidze and by the Director of the “Institute for Development of Freedom of Information“ (IDFI) Giorgi Kldiashvili. During the meeting participants discussed the upcoming regional conference of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Georgia, the reward issues of the 2015 Open Government Partnership and the progress issues of the fulfillment of the Action Plan.

The Co-Chair of the Open Government Forum in Georgia (hereafter - Forum), Zurab Sanikidze presented information regarding the OGP steering committee meeting in Mexico, on 21-23 April 2015. The Minister of Justice of Georgia - Tea Tsulukiani and the Co-Chair of the Open Government Forum Georgia - Zurab Sanikidze participated in the meeting.

Forum discussed the participation of Georgia at the Open Government Reward Competition in 2015. The subject of the competition for the current year is development of state services that are considered as one of the main components of the transparency governed by OGP. The members of Forum discussed various projects that might bring success to Georgia on the competition.

By the decision of the Forum, Georgia will present the project “The Voice of a Customer” at the OGP reward competition of this year. “The Voice of a Customer” was established within the scopes of Open Government Georgia Action Plan 2014-2015. The main purpose of the project is improvement of the quality of public service considering the feedback and evaluations from citizens. At the same time the Association Agreement with EU, considers consumer’s rights as the subject of harmonization with EU regulations. Accordingly, wining of presented reward by Georgia will be a good massage to European Union as well because it will emphasize the success in the sphere of consumer’s rights too.

Forum presented the progress of commitments being implemented. Forum discussed the reports regarding Open Government Action Plan commitments of LEPL Center of Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Trainings, the Ministry of Finance and LEPL State Procurement Agency. The representatives of the Center of Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Training, talked about the electoral process and steps made in order to develop public consciousness and already established projects.

LEPL State Procurement Agency discussed enlargement of public procurement electronic system and integration of electronic competition module. Representative of the Ministry of Finance presented the activities and the future plans regarding the effective mechanism of informing the public about the budget.

Participants of the forum agreed that the next meeting of the Open Government Forum Georgia will take place after the OGP regional conference.