Open Government Partnership (OGP) was established in 2011 and aims to support the openness and accountability of the Governments’ of its member countries. The OGP unites 80 countries and covers the governmental, parliamentary and local directions.

Georgia became member of OGP in 2011. From the period of establishing the OGP, Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) was actively involved in implementation and execution of OGP principles in Georgia.

According to the regulations of OGP, the development of Action Plan should be conducted with the involvement of the civil sector and with consulting the society. At the same time, the OGP requires for all member countries to create the effective implementation and coordination mechanism. 

For these purposes Open Government Georgia’s Forum was created which was later replaced by the Open Governance Inter-Agency Coordination Council.  

The coordination council covers all three branches of the government and consists of – the representatives of the ministries, deputy chairman of the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Chairman of the Open Governance Permanent Parliamentary Council. Hereby, the members of the non-governmental organizations are represented in the council with the voting right. Therefore, the decision-making process in the council is based on a cumulative majority of the representatives of the state agencies and the NGOs. Conclusively, in case the majority of NGO representatives oppose a proposed decision, such a decision will not be taken.

Unlike the Open Government Georgia's Forum (which previously managed the OGP implementation process in Georgia on Governmental level), the Coordination Council has the mandatory representation of senior officials that should have a positive impact on OGP commitments implementation progress. The involvement of the relevant ministries in Open Government Forum was based on the voluntary principle, therefore, the majority of the NGOs did not have the authority to block the proposed decision. OGP Forum will be maintained but it will only act as the working group of the coordination council, delivering opinions, recommendations and the draft Open Government Partnership Action Plan of Georgia to the council.

Representatives of state agencies are designated as the permanent members of the Coordination Council, including Parliamentary Secretary of the Government of Georgia, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia, Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, Deputy Minister of Justice of Georgia, Head of the Civil Service Bureau, Chairman of the State Procurement Agency as well as the representatives of other state institutions. Following the charter, the council is chaired by the Head of the Administration of the Government of Georgia.