Project Title: Empower Society for Strengthening Good Governance

Project Funded: International Visegrad Fund, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Grant Number: 21650161

Project Budget: EUR 49,670

Project Duration: March 1, 2017 – May 31, 2018

Partner Organizations: KohoVolit.eu (Czech Republic and Slovakia), K-Monitor Public Benefit Association (Hungary), Stanczyk Institute of Civic Thought Foundation (Poland).

Project relevance/context

Despite some progress over the past few years, standards of good governance, open data and accountability of government still remain a challenge for Georgia. Open data available at government portal - www.data.gov.ge does not match with the actual open data resources available at public institutions. Even the datasets, that are available, are not used sufficiently for mobile applications, public monitoring, data visualizations, creating stories, raising awareness, providing services, etc. Journalists, activists as well as society in general do not have enough skills and knowledge on how to use open data. In addition, in most cases, public information is not provided in machine-readable format and is instead disclosed in paper or scanned form. This limits opportunities for the public to properly perform its watchdog function.

Project objectives

Main project objective

Empower the Georgian public to effectively monitor and control the government as well as increase the level of openness and accountability of the Georgian government.

Specific project objectives

- Encourage use of open data and data visualization for monitoring government activities/spending among activists, journalists through establishment of an interactive platform containing hundreds of datasets.

- Improve cooperation between different groups of Georgian society (journalists, CSO representatives, activists, students, etc.) in their watchdog activities.

- Enhance standards of proactive disclosure of open data in Georgia through sharing the experience and practice of European countries.

Outputs/Deliverables: Products or Events

1. FOI requests and received public data from several Georgian government institutions

2. Establishment of the platform

3. Creating and publishing data sets

4. Consultations with partners from V4 countries on data visualization

8. Video about the platform

9. Data visualizations

10. Preparing publication

11. Presentation of the platform

12. Essay contest

13. Final presentation 

Contract