On 25-26 March 2023 Telavi municipality successfully organised public consultations aimed at developing the 2023-2024 Local Economic Development Action Plan. Innovative civil participation from the “CivicLab” methodology was used in the public consultations to ensure broad citizens’ participation in the transparent creation of the policy document.
"CivicLab" is an innovative digital methodology, developed by the Council of Europe, that brings together different sectoral representatives to discuss public consultation topics in an inclusive manner to develop proposals and recommendations upon which to follow up. The methodology was piloted by Ozurgeti municipality in 2022 and resulted in the "Open Government Partnership (OGP) Local Action Plan for 2023-2025”.
Citizens of Telavi were selected through an open registration process. The selected group representing public, civil, education and business sectors worked in mixed sub-groups to address three thematic areas: business development and creation of high-paid jobs, development of urban and tourism infrastructure, introduction and development of new technologies in agriculture in Telavi municipality. Participants were invited to identify problems in these thematic areas, to formulate ideas and to assess their realisation. Through the consultations, the participants developed the 2023-2024 Local Economic Development Action Plan of Telavi Municipality.
This event took place at the Iakob Gogebashvili Telavi State University in the framework of the project “Strengthening Participatory Democracy and Human Rights at Local Level in Georgia”, implemented by the Directorate General of Democracy and Human Dignity, Division of Elections and Participatory Democracy, and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023 with the financial contribution of the Austrian Development Cooperation.
