Interview with Deputy Mayor of Tbilisi, Nina Katiskatsi
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What made your government a good candidate for the subnational pilot program?
I think the Mayor’s application was well motivated, with clear vision and realistic commitments. I am certain, that the overall success of OGP in Georgia played an important role in this decision. Realizing that in very competitive environment, where out of 45 only 15 very impressive applicants were selected, we fully comprehend this huge responsibility and are ready to do our best to achieve set goals.
Do you think that the concepts that you’ve applied in Tbilisi could work elsewhere in Georgia or elsewhere in the world?
First of all, at this stage we are in the process of drafting the Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... for 2017. We are aiming for our plan to be ambitious, as well as beneficial for our citizens. Our main emphases will be made on using modern technologies and increasing citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More in the decision-making process. The approach we have in Tbilisi could be easily applied elsewhere in Georgia and in other countries. The main concept is that OGP, and in general openness of the government, should be mutually beneficial for both the government and the general public, bearing in mind that, this is not just an obligation but also a tool – to make more informed and legitimate decisions with broader participation of society. On the other hand, the same impulse should come from the side of the society. They have to become more powerful and informed. Their daily routine has to be simplified with better access to information and feedback mechanisms. This is vital not only for our city, but also everywhere in the world.
What is going to be the biggest implementation challenge?
The most challenging part is that Tbilisi City Hall is a giant organization with around 23 thousand employees including: departments, territorial units, service providing companies, etc. Sometimes I call it – “the state within the state, the country within the country.” Tbilisi has a third of the population of the whole country, and the biggest portion of GDP is created in the capital. So I would say we are a huge organization. From this perspective, the most challenging part of the implementation will be coordination and synchronization of new commitments between all the different agencies within City Hall.
One of the objectives of the subnational pilot program is to broaden the knowledge and experience of OGP, and national governments may be able to learn from things happening at the local level. As we’ve heard a lot about Georgia’s public service halls, we’re curious as to if – and how – Tbilisi might take this innovation local and modify/change the program according to the city’s needs?
It’s very relevant question for us. Yes, the experience on the national level of this one bus stop system [the Georgian Public Service Halls], and unifying all systems in one area is a really good example that can be replicated or taken as an experience on the local level. We are moving in this direction. We work very intensively to create user friendly, open and transparent spaces for our citizens. In a few days, we will start the reconstruction of our public hall, where we will centralize all different services. At this stage we will study the business processes of all different departments and services, thus moving from paper to electronic proceedings.
Of course, municipal services (social support, healthcare allowance or medicine, fixing roads in front of houses, improving housing conditions and providing shelter, co-funding reconstruction of houses, etc.) have their specificities, and implementation might not be as smooth and precise as proceedings at public service halls, but simplified procedures will make people’s lives easier.
So yes, we are moving to that direction. Within OGP we are putting together many components in this regard. We are creating electronic governance, unified systems where you can easily get and receive information, and this will be part of the OGP Action Plan.
Tbilisi has promised commitments on participatory governance and citizen participation. How do you envision that working in a city that’s as big and diverse as Tbilisi? How can you take that experience and offer it to others within the pilot?
One of the most visible commitments is participatory budgeting – involving citizens in budget planning, proactively approaching them through our territorial units and in parallel having an online portal for this purpose. At the same time, we will create an electronic tool to monitor the budget on a daily basis, thus creating visuals which enable citizens to make daily spending comparisons between different budget line items or between different months.
Citizen participation in general still needs to be hugely encouraged. Although in Georgia, and especially in Tbilisi, we have a very strong NGO sector and business community, we still lack strong civil society; the general public is not that empowered, and this is the biggest challenge. Our task is to make them more informed and involved in planning (getting their feedback through focus groups, surveys, etc.) as well as in implementation stages.
Coming back from this OGP meeting [the Asia-Pacific Regional Dialogue], I am more convinced that the citizen feedback component is a crucial part of the open government concept. The municipality, as the main service delivery agency, could not provide quality services without having effective mechanisms of getting feedback.
Nina Khatiskatsi is a Deputy Mayor at Tbilisi City Hall since August 2014. Before joining Tbilisi municipality, she worked in the NGO sector for many years on democracy and governance issues. In parallel, she was local consultant in international organizations. She was Program Director at TransparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More International Georgia for many years and Parliamentary Program Coordinator at the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Before that, she worked at the Ministry of Defense as Senior Officer-Analyst. Ms. Khatiskatsi graduated from Tbilisi State University’s Faculty of Economic Geography. She continued her MBA in Georgian Diplomatic Academy with a degree in International Relations.