On January 25-26, the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) held working meetings with the private sector in the cities of Kutaisi and Batumi to discuss the availability of open government data of significance to the private sector.

The events were held within the framework of the project implemented with the support of the USAID Economic Governance Program – Open Government Data study, which aims to reveal the needs, capacities, and potential that private companies have to create new services, increase efficiency, and facilitate economic growth through the use of data.

During the meetings, private sector representatives indicated access to which databases under the ownership of state institutions is especially important and economically beneficial to them. They also discussed various data processing practices, as well as the challenges associated with obtaining open government data and potential ways to overcome these challenges.

It should be noted that the study emphasizes open government data that represent structured databases that are run and managed by individual public institutions and should be accessible to all stakeholders for reuse – for example, data on public transport movement and schedules, cadastral maps, weather forecast, various registries in the public register, including the registry of business entities, land ownership registry, etc.

As a result of studying the needs of the public sector, the study aims to reveal the databases, the availability of which is especially important and economically beneficial to private companies operating in Georgia.

The results of the research will subsequently be presented to relevant public institutions, which will increase the access of the private sector to such data in the future.