On 26 November 2022 the municipality of Ozurgeti will hold public consultations to develop the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Local Action Plan for 2023-2025. The consultations will be conducted by applying “CivicLab”, an innovative consultation methodology developed by the Council of Europe. The methodology will be implemented for the first time in Georgia, in the framework of the Council of Europe project “Strengthening Participatory Democracy and Human Rights at Local Level in Georgia”.

“CivicLab” is designed to establish a constructive and effective dialogue and interaction between stakeholders (public authorities, civil society organisations, media, representatives of education sector, private sector, international organisations) and citizens to make their voices heard in local decision-making, leading to an effective policy co-creation process.

For the public consultations in Ozurgeti , citizens of the municipality as well as local authority representatives were invited through an open call to register for the consultations. Considering the information provided by the applications, Council of Europe experts and the municipality selected 30 participants through a “traffic light” method, where participants will be attributed proportionally to different groups so that multi-stakeholder participation is ensured in each group.

“CivicLab” will be applied to address community problems in Ozurgeti and formulate solutions within three thematic areas: anti-corruption, public finances and service delivery The methodology, which is organised in 5 main stages - identifying problems, developing ideas, assess the realisation of the ideas and planning – offers the citizens of Ozurgeti the opportunity to develop proposals and formulate relevant solutions through a structured approach guided by experts and facilitators.

Results of the public consultations will be reflected in the Open Government Partnership Action Plan 2023-2025 of Ozurgeti municipality.