About the Council

OGP Georgia Council duplicates the OGP structure and offers the opportunity for equal participation to both government agencies and civil society actors. Each Deputy of every Minister and Heads of NGOs enjoy the right to vote in the Council. Council members without the right to vote are representatives of international organizations and other government agencies. For better coordination of OGP on a national level, members of the Parliament of Georgia and representatives of the Supreme Court of Georgia, and of the municipalities involved in the process participate in the Council’s sessions.

The Council is led by a Chair and a Co-Chair. The position of a Chair is held by the Head of the Administration of the Government of Georgia, whereas a Co-Chair is unanimously nominated by the Council member NGOs with the right to vote.

To enable the all-around involvement of NGOs both in the Council and in the Forum, sharing the responsibility and increasing the role of each member, the Statute of the Council, as well as the Forum guidelines, determine the terms of the election as a Co-Chair.

• The Co-Chair is elected for the term of the Action Plan at the beginning of its elaboration stage; the same organization cannot be put forward as a Co-Chair for the two consecutive Action Plan cycles.
• By such a record one and the same organization will be able to occupy the position of a Co-Chair several times, though not for two terms of the Action Plan in a row.

Decision-making procedure of the Council

According to the open governance principles, the Administration of the Government of Georgia took into consideration the recommendation of the NGOs involved in the process and a High-level Council was established for the first time in Georgia, where the decision-making procedure requires both the majority of the votes of the permanent member government agencies and the majority of the votes of the permanent member NGOs. In case of a tie in the votes under such a procedure, the Chair and the Co-Chair of the Council determine the term of consultation, after the expiration of which the Council submits a proposal to vote once again.

The Council establishes an open governance policy and monitors the implementation of the agreed commitments with active engagement of the civil sector.

The Council is an open governance platform enabling civil society organizations to solicit immediate decision-makers for many issues of their interest related to open governance.

The key goals of the Council are:

• Implementation and coordination of general open governance policy in the country
• Preparation of OGP Georgia Action Plan and its submission to the Government of Georgia
• Monitoring and evaluation of the Action Plan implementation
• Discussion of OGP projects, initiatives, and legislative changes
• Coordination of inter-agency activities.

The establishment of the Council enhanced the accountability of the government agencies participating in the OGP process:

• In case of not taking into consideration and/or partially taking into consideration recommendations made by NGOs, Council member government agencies shall submit a written argumented refusal to the Council, as opposed to the discussion format only, which was the case before the Council had been established.

The OGP Georgia Forum is the permanent working group of the Council.

Decree of the Government of Georgia №110 On the approval of the Statute and Composition of the Open Government Interagency Coordination Council of Georgia