The Forum was opened by the Head of Administration of the Government of Georgia. Natia Mezvrishvili stressed the importance of the OGP process and introduced the future plans of the Administration to the members of the Forum.

“We have been elected as a member of the Steering Committee and we will try to be even more active in terms of implementation of open governance principles. The processes will become proactive in various formats, whether that be the OGP Georgia High-level Council or similar forums. To formalize the process, several meetings have already been held, as we believe that settling the formalities will make the processes more legitimate and, most importantly, will increase the involvement of high-ranking public officials. This is essential for the organizations involved in the process to be able to voice their opinions on concrete reforms immediately in front of the decision-makers”, stated Natia Mezvrishvili.

The Head of Administration of the Government of Georgia also highlighted the state of implementation of the current Action Plan and future plans. Natia Mezvrishvili explained that the planned activities will be efficient and feasible and will be focused on large scale reforms and the support of the Third Sector in the process will be of vital importance.

The Secretariat of OGP – Georgia proposed to the Forum new initiatives to strengthen the open governance coordination process, including the establishment of the first high-level advisory body of the Government working on open governance issues. The Forum discussed the format, the mandate, and the operational procedures of the Council.

The Secretariat presented the results of monitoring of the Action Plan for 2018-2019 to the Forum. The responsible agencies also made a briefing on the progress of fulfillment of commitments at the meeting and informed the Forum on current challenges.

The participants of the Forum also discussed the calendar of elaboration of a new Action Plan and the next steps.

The meeting was attended by the Forum member public agencies and representatives of local and international organizations.

OGP Georgia Forum was conducted with the support of the USAID-funded Good Governance Initiative (GGI) Project.

Open Government Partnership (OGP) was established in 2011 by the initiative of the Presidents of the US and Brazil and is aimed at the advance of transparency, accountability, and efficiency. Georgia was one of the first countries to join OGP in 2011. Georgia was the OGP Chair in 2017-2018 and hosted the 5^th OGP Global Summit in Tbilisi.

Since the spring of 2019, OGP Georgia has been coordinated by the Administration of the Government of Georgia nationally and internationally. In April 2019, Georgia was elected as a member of the Steering Committee for a 3-year term. The Government of Georgia is represented in the Steering Committee by the Head of Administration of the Government of Georgia.