Partnership for Budget Transparency: Civil Society Oversight of Public Spending in Georgia

Project Description:

The project aims to enhance and promote civil society engagement in the budgeting process in Georgia, and to increase the level of transparency regarding budgeting and public spending.

In order to achieve this objective, position papers will be prepared covering the following issues:

1. Promoting more transparency and accountability in public procurement including but not limited to changes to the public procurement legislation as well as GoG decree on “proactive publication of public information”
2. Public engagement outreach of State Audit Office of Georgia (SAO) that will not compromise the supreme auditor’s independence. SAO’s audit reports are available on its website however the language and context is technical. In order to improve public engagement, recommendations will be provided on how to develop the annual report of SAO in a lay reader-friendly format
3. Public participation in budgeting and budget execution. Georgia received the lowest scores in the area of public participation (43 out of 100) according to the Open Budget Index (OBI). The position paper will briefly describe weaknesses identified in the OBI 2015 survey and produce practical recommendations on how to establish credible and effective mechanisms (i.e. public hearings, surveys, focus groups) to capture a range of public perspectives on budget matters.