On March 5, Ministry of Justice hosted the third Open Government Partnership forum, which, apart from the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice and Non-governmental organizations, was attended by several public institutions and ministries, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, LEPL Center of Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Training, LEPL National Agency for State Property Management, Tbilisi Court of Appeals, as well as the representatives of USAID, UNDP and European Union. During the third meeting, EU and UNDP became the members of the forum.

The head of the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice and the co-chair of the forum – Rusudan Mikhelidze presented the OGP banner on the web-page of Ministry of Justice, which notifies the visitor that the action plan is being elaborated. By clicking on the banner, user is transferred to the special sub-page which appeals to the citizens to get involved in discussing the action plan. Some of the participants of the forum stated that it is important to enable the commenting option which will assist in determining the general level of civic consciousness in these issues. Rusudan Mikhelidze proposed to the attendants to place the banner on the web-pages of their organizations and public institutions.

The co-chair of the forum, Giorgi Kldiashvili presented the recommendations about the public consultations, which was the joint endeavor of non-governmental organizations. In order to make Open Government Partnership issues popular and provide active public engagement, Giorgi Kldiashvili proposed various ways including the presentation about the OGP topic by ministry of Justice on the government meeting, Prime Minister conducting the press conference, placing OGP banner on the web-page of Government of Georgia, creating separate web-page for this issue, producing the videos and showing TV programs dedicated to this issue, spreading information through mailing lists and conducting meetings in the regions.

The last part of the meeting was dedicated to presenting the primary version of the action plan, within the frames of which seven public institutions (Ministry of Justice, Public Service Hall, Data Exchange Agency, Development Agency of Stat Services, Public Service Bureau, Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia, State Audit Office, Competition and State Procurement Agency) have taken new commitments for 2014-2015.

The next meeting of the forum will be conducted on April 2 and will be dedicated to the issue of public consultations.

The public institutions and the non-governmental organizations, participating in the forum, were given one week for submitting the recommendations about the commitments taken within the frames of the 2014-2015 action plan.