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Ozurgeti, Georgia · Georgia

Inception Report – Action plan – Ozurgeti, Georgia, 2021 – 2021

Overview

Name of Evaluator

Dea Tsartsidze

Email

dea_tsartsidze@yahoo.com

Member

Ozurgeti, Georgia

Action Plan

Action plan – Ozurgeti, Georgia, 2021 – 2021

Section 1.
Compliance with
co-creation requirements

1.1 Does a forum exist?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

A Working Group established on the 8th of October 2020 aimed to monitor and evaluate activities within the integrity and transparency strategy of the municipality. The group continued coordinating OGP Local’s strategic vision and development of the action plan as well as the implementation of the local action plan in Ozurgeti municipality. The Working Group involves representatives of City Hall and Sakrebulo of Ozurgeti municipality, representatives of legal entities founded by the City Hall and Sakrebulo, civil advisor, gender equality council, and representative of local civil society organizations (CSOs). Moreover, a co-chair of the working group is a civil society representative. Therefore, the Working Group serves as the main mechanism to ensure the co-creation spirit of OGP Local’s action plan development and implementation.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.2 Is the forum multi-stakeholder?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The Working Group is a multi-stakeholder and involves various stakeholders from different sectors, such as representatives of local CSOs and other interested parties – the Progress House, Institute for Change and Innovation, Democratic Development Union of Georgia. The working group also involves local CSOs that represent the voices of local marginal communities. In addition, Ozurgeti Municipality invited the local non-governmental organization “Charity Associate-Guria” to be involved in the action plan implementation.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.3 Does the forum hold at least one meeting with civil society and non-governmental stakeholders during the co-creation of the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

While designing the action plan, consultations were still held with local governance and main stakeholders involved, regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic. These consultations were held under the lead of Sakrebulo. As a result, representatives of five groups attended two meetings organized during the stage of action plan development. In total, 16 participants participated in the public consultation stage. Out of those, five representatives of local governance and three local CSOs attended the first meeting, while three representatives of local governance and five representatives of local civil society attended the second meeting.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.4 Has the action plan been endorsed by the stakeholders of the forum or steering committee/group?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Local civil society was actively engaged in OGP’s local action plan development in Ozurgeti municipality. In particular, representatives of the Democratic Development Union of Georgia, Innovation and Civic Development Center “Progress House,” Institute of Change and Innovation, and Guria Youth Union. According to the local civil society, the key priorities and commitments were identified based on the active discussions with local governance and civil society, and during the design process, the vision and action plan were jointly reviewed and discussed. The development partner, USAID GGI, supported the co-creation OGP Local action plan design process.

Provide evidence for your answer:

Section 2.
Recommended practices
in co-creation

2.1 Does the government maintain a Local OGP website or webpage on a government website where information on the OGP Local process (co-creation and implementation) is proactively published?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Ozurgeti municipality holds a separate section for OGP Local on their official webpage. It is located on the municipality’s official website and is regularly updated. The municipality has shared the strategic vision and action plan publicly via the official website and social media as well. The information was available for public discussion and comments for 14 days. Additionally, all information related to OGP is shared proactively on the municipality’s official Facebook page. The municipality regularly shares meeting minutes after the Working Group meetings.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.2 Did the government provide information to stakeholders in advance to facilitate informed and prepared participation in the co-creation process?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

With the working group’s assistance, Ozurgeti municipality led the co-creation process. On average, the stakeholders were informed about the upcoming meetings 2-3 days earlier, before the events actually took place. Thus, all the stakeholders who were members of the Working Group were able to participate in the process of strategic vision and action plan development. According to the stakeholders, the importance of individual citizen engagement was also very actively discussed within the working group. As a result, the municipality actively shared information about the design of the action plan on its official website as well as social media. However, any particular actions intended to increase citizen participation are still limited. Notably, as the action plan development process was during the COVID-19 pandemic; thus, the government was limited to conducting wider-scale public consultation.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.3 Did the government ensure that any interested member of the public could make inputs into the action plan and observe or have access to decision-making documentation?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the local government representatives, OGP’s action plan development process was open to all interested parties. Furthermore, as stated by the representative of the “Democratic Development Union of Georgia,” identifying the key priorities for the OGP local action was prepared within the framework of Working Group, and the international development partner organizations were also involved and facilitated the co-creation process.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.4 Did the government proactively report back or provide written feedback to stakeholders on how their contributions were considered during the creation of the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Representatives of local governance and CSOs’ confirmed active co-creation process was conducted within the working group format. Therefore, priorities were jointly defined. Moreover, during the second meeting, the local SCO’s representative provided the municipal priorities’ working version for group discussion. It is notable that local non-governmental organizations assessed initiated priorities as fully related to the topics that could get positive evaluation and support from the local governance, considering the preliminary information.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.5 Was there an iterative dialogue and shared ownership between government and non-governmental stakeholders during the decision making process, including setting the agenda?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

There was a dialogue between the local government and non-governmental organizations in the action plan development process. Under the dialogue is considered the active discussions with civil society as well as development partners within the framework of the working group during the development of the action plan. Working group members representing non-governmental organizations actively participated in the process and closely cooperated with local government.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.6 Would you consider the forum to be inclusive and diverse?

Very

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The forum is assessed as inclusive due to its diverse representation of all the key stakeholders from Ozurgeti Municipality. In particular, all the key leading non-governmental organizations, development partners, organizations working for marginalized communities are represented in the working group that serves as the OGP forum for Ozurgeti Municipality.

Provide evidence for your answer:

Section 3. Initial evaluation of commitments

1. Commitment :

Ensure equal access to public service for the vulnerable groups and improve response to their needs in Ozurgeti Municipality.

1.1 Is the commitment verifiable?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment aims to ensure equal availability of public services for the marginalized communities and improve the reaction to their needs. Commitment involves the three main milestones: 1) detailed analysis assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable communities and the extent to which the local authorities have responded to their needs. (Output: the study report is developed). 2) Develop and approve recommendations to improve access to public services for the vulnerable population and the municipality’s response to their needs. (Outcome: recommendations are developed and approved); 3) Develop and approve Action Plan based on the approved recommendations. (Outcome: action plan is developed and approved). Therefore, the milestones and outputs outlined in the commitment are clearly defined and specific enough to measure. Thus, the commitment is verifiable.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.2 Does the commitment language/activities clearly justify relevance to OGP values?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment aims to conduct comprehensive research for assessing the impact of Covid-19 on marginalized communities. Then, based on the research results, develop an action plan to improve access to public services for marginalized communities.
In particular, the OGP Local Action Plan aims to improve access to services based on the needs of the marginalized communities, based on the comprehensive study results that are supposed to interview the local population to study their needs. Thus, the commitment is relevant to OGP value- civic participation.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.3 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

a new regulation, policy, practice or requirement.

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

One of the objectives of decentralization strategy (2020-2025) and public administration reform is to enhance citizen participation during the decision-making or implementation processes at the local level. Therefore, ensuring equal access to public services and initiatives based on the needs of marginalized communities represent new practice for Ozurgeti municipality to initiate, plan and implement policy based on participatory approaches. Thus, the utilization of citizen participatory approaches for policy planning is an important step forward for the Ozurgeti municipality as well as for institutional strengthening of the whole self-governance.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.4 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

is a positive change to a process, practice or policy but will not generate a binding or institutionalized change across government or specific institution(s).

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

This commitment is an important step forward for Ozurgeti municipality. With the initiative, this commitment will introduce new practices for the municipality to initiate, develop and implement policies based on the citizens’ needs and the participatory approaches, which aims to improve access to the services for the marginalized communities. Nevertheless, as a result of this commitment, to achieve important and long-term outcomes, the practice should not be just one-time activity but institutionalized in the municipality. In particular, concrete implementation mechanisms should be outlined as internal regulations and being applied in a long-term perspective.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.5 Are there any recommended changes to the design of the commitment to help improve its implementation?

  • Public servants’ training: it is important to train public servants. It would contribute to the long-term perspective enabling enable the municipality to conduct research and develop action plans independently.
  • For achieving long-term outcomes and improving public service delivery, institutionalize the policy and continue implementing the activities after completing the first action plan.

2. Commitment :

Improvement of Corruption Risk Management in the Ozurgeti Municipality

2.1 Is the commitment verifiable?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment aims to develop the corruption risk assessment methodology in Ozurgeti Municipality. As a next step, based on this methodology, carry out a corruption risk assessment and prepare and approve a report summarizing the information about the relevant risks for Ozurgeti Municipality. In total, three milestones are identified to implement the commitments. In particular, 1) development and approval of corruption risk assessment methodology (output: the assessment methodology is developed and approved); 2) Carry out of corruption risk assessment for Ozurgeti municipality’s City Hall and its municipal agencies (Output: corruption risk assessment is based on corruption risk assessment methodology is conducted). 3) Prepare and approve the corruption risk assessment report (Output: corruption risk assessment report is developed and approved).

Therefore, the milestones and outputs outlined in the commitment are clearly defined and specific enough to measure. Thus, the commitment is verifiable.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.2 Does the commitment language/activities clearly justify relevance to OGP values?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The Commitment text language clearly justifies its relevance to one of the OGP values – public accountability. According to the OGP Local Action Plan defines, the development and approval of corruption risk assessment methodology, carrying out the assessment and identifying the relevant corruption risks in the municipality enable Ozurgeti municipality to identify and mitigate corruption risks in City Hall and the agencies under the City Hall. The conduction of the assessment of the corruption risk in the municipality will contribute to increasing the optimal usage of public resources, increase awareness among the public sector, and also supports public servants’ integrity and thus, making the local government more accountable to the citizens

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.3 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

a new regulation, policy, practice or requirement.

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the Public Administration Reform and decentralization strategy for the years 2020-2025 and National Anti-Corruption Strategy for the years 2019-2020, one of the main strategic goals of the Georgian government is strengthening the anti-corruption mechanisms on the municipal level. Nevertheless, corruption risks management and monitoring represent Ozurgeti municipality’s new practices. Therefore, the development and approval of corruption risk assessment methodology and preparation of corruption risk assessment report will be a step forward for the Ozurgeti municipality and the institutional strengthening of self-governance.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.4 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

is a positive change to a process, practice or policy but will not generate a binding or institutionalized change across government or specific institution(s).

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment is a significant step forward for Ozurgeti municipality. In particular, commitment will strengthen anti-corruption measures in the municipality by using a better and new anti-corruption mechanism on the municipal level. Also, it will contribute to policy planning based on the integrity principle and increase the municipality’s accountability. However, to achieve important and long-term results, the risk of corruption measures should be institutionalized. Therefore, concrete implementation mechanisms should be outlined as internal regulations and be used in a long-term perspective.

Provide evidence for your answer:

–

2.5 Are there any recommended changes to the design of the commitment to help improve its implementation?

  • Increase public servants’ awareness: during the commitment implementation process, it is important to increase awareness of corruption risk among employees working in the City Hall, Sakrebulo, and its legal entities. Therefore, it will increase their participation in identifying the corruption risk and be engaged in this process to plan concrete actions against the identified corruption risks.
  • Public servants’ training: it is important to increase the capabilities of public servants to increase their knowledge related to anti-corruption issues. The long-term perspective will enable the municipality to conduct the corruption risk assessment and prepare the report independently.
  • To achieve the long-term outcome and form sustained local governance and better policy development, it is mandatory to institutionalize the corruption risk assessment measures and continue implementing actions against identified corruption risks.

3. Commitment :

Improve Public Finance Management processes in Ozurgeti Municipality through inclusive and active participation

3.1 Is the commitment verifiable?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment aims to improve public finance management processes in Ozurgeti municipality through inclusion and active citizen engagement. The commitment clearly defines steps for achieving the objective, such as 1) developing initial draft priority documents for the 2022-2025 budget along with the municipality’s medium-term action plan and program budget documents for 2022. (Output: initial developed respective draft documents, 2022-2025′ priority document, medium-term action plan, and program budget for the year of 2022). 2) Organizing public meetings with different stakeholders in order to discuss the documents defined in the first stage of commitment. (Output: at least three public meetings are organized with the participation of different interested non-governmental parties. 3) Finalizing and approval of the 2022-2025 budget years’ priority document, municipality’s medium-term plan, and program budget document for the year 2022. (Output: priority document, medium-term action plan, and program budget document are finalized, approved by the Sakrebulo, and published on the municipality’s website). 4) Development citizens’ guide of the local budget for 2022. (Output: Guidebook for citizens is developed and published on municipality’s website).

Therefore, the milestones and outputs outlined in the commitment are clearly defined and specific enough to measure. Thus, the commitment is verifiable.

Provide evidence for your answer:

3.2 Does the commitment language/activities clearly justify relevance to OGP values?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment language clearly justifies compliance of commitment with OGP’s values. In particular, it is relevant to accountability, access to information, and civic participation. According to the action plan, applying the PFM process in Ozurgeti municipality strengthens inclusive and active involvement in the local decision-making process. On the one hand, access to information about the municipality’s budget will be increased. On the other hand, the budget will be developed with the active involvement of the citizens, and not only citizens but also with the active participation of various departments from the City Mayors’ Office and not the only responsibility of financial departments. As a result, it will strengthen the accountability of the local governance.

Provide evidence for your answer:

3.3 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

a new regulation, policy, practice or requirement.

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

On the local level, commitment implementation by Ozurgeti municipality introduces new practices that allow establishing new budget planning practices in the municipality, regardless of the Decentralization Strategy and Action Plan for the years 2020-2025 or Budget Code of Georgia that obliges municipality to adopt the program budget 2019. In 2020, with support from USAID GGI, the Ozurgeti municipality could undertake the Public Finance Management assessment using PEFA indicators. Thus, commitment serves to improve the concrete areas defined after the assessment. Therefore, the commitment intends to improve priority areas by introducing inclusive Public Finance Management in the municipality.

Provide evidence for your answer:

3.4 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

is a positive change to a process, practice or policy but will not generate a binding or institutionalized change across government or specific institution(s).

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment is a significant step forward in improving the financial management of the municipality’s budget processes. In addition, it facilitates citizen engagement in the budget process. However, continuation actions to improve the budgetary process are key for sustainability and achieving important and long-term outcomes.

Provide evidence for your answer:

3.5 Are there any recommended changes to the design of the commitment to help improve its implementation?

  • Increase public servants’ awareness: during the process of commitment implementation, it is important to increase awareness on program budgeting among employees working in the City Hall, Sakrebulo. It will enable their active participation in the development of the budget project for the next year.
  • Public servants’ training: It is important to improve the capabilities of public servants. In addition, the long-term perspective will enable the municipality to prepare medium-term and economic development plans independently.
  • For achieving the long-term outcome and forming sustainable local policy to improve the budgetary process, it is mandatory to continue actions after completing the current OGP Local Action Plan.
  • Action steps were taken by the municipality that will support citizen engagement.
Filed under: Asia and the Pacific Eastern Partnership Inception Report Local Official OGP Documents OGP Community OGP Member Information Report

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