On November 22, 2022, IDFI held a workshop - Improve Access to Open Data: Georgia’s Needs and international standards / best practices. The event covered the issues of the availability of public/open data in Georgia: main achievements, challenges, and needs. Teona Turashvili, Head of IDFI's Local Government, Internet and Innovations Directions presented Georgia‘s results and highlighted achievements and needs based on various international studies/surveys in terms of the availability of public/open data. Emphasis was made on what the country needs to improve the results in the mentioned surveys: improving legislation, ensuring the availability of individual datasets, or publishing data in an open format. 

IDFI’s analyst, David Eristavi overviewed the good practices identified in various countries on the basis of the mentioned studies. These examples can be useful for Georgia to increase the availability of data on certain categories. Additionally, David presented an overview of the main directive of the European Union related to the availability of public data - the Open Data Directive: the main principles and requirements of the directive. Consideration of the mentioned directive is important for Georgia in terms of harmonizing the legislation with European standards.

By the end of the presentations, a discussion was held with the active participation of representatives from public institutions, CSOs, and the private sector, who shared their views on the ways of improving the availability and re-use of open data in Georgia. Among other initiatives, the following needs were expressed: needs assessment of the private and public sectors, as well as of CSOs, in terms of ensuring availability and use of data in open formats, promoting the development of data-driven applications/services, activities focused on data-literacy, supporting/capacity building of the public sector in terms of data management and processing.

The event was held within the framework of the project - Advancing Open Data Standards and Promoting Open Data Use in Georgia. The project is financed by International Media Support (IMS).