On March 31-April 1, 2021, the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), Center for Training and Consultancy (CTC) and Management Systems Development Center (MSDC) held two-day online training on the Local Self-Government Index for regional organizations.

The Local Self-Government Index is a joint initiative of these organizations, which evaluates accountability and transparency of municipalities.

The aim of the training was to introduce an evaluation methodology to the representatives of partner regional organizations. In the future they will evaluate the executive and representative bodies of municipalities based on this methodology. The assessment of municipalities will be launched on April 5, 2021.

The training participants received both theoretical information and practical experience of the assessment of municipalities' accountability and transparency. They were provided with the details of the index methodology and discuss particular circumstances of the assessment process. The participants also got familiar with the information of quality assessment criteria and the methods to verify the information reliability.

The training was conducted based on a special guidebook prepared for local civil society organizations assessing municipalities.

The index methodology consists of three modules: proactive disclosure of public information, e-governance, and civic participation and accountability.

The training was lead by Teona Turashvili and Goga Tushurashvili from IDFI, Tamar Naskidashvili from CTC and Koka Kighuradze from MSDC.

Representatives of the following regional organizations took part in the training: Local Democracy Agency Georgia (LDA), Association “Dea”, Union of Democrat Meskhs (UDM), Green Caucasus, Civil Society Institute – Batumi (CSI), Community Union Nukriani and Democratic Development Union of Georgia.

The training was organized in frames of the project - Local Self-Government Index - 2021, with the financial support of the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF)