On 25-26 March 2023 Telavi municipality successfully applied Council of Europe’s civil participation methodology “CivicLab” to conduct public consultations aimed at developing 2023-2024 Local Economic Development Action Plan. Organising public consultations by the innovative civil participation methodology “CivicLab” ensures that the policy document is created with citizens’ participation and deliberation.
"CivicLab" is an innovative digital methodology for public consultations, which brings together representatives of different sectors to discuss the topic of the consultation and to develop proposals with an inclusive process. The methodology has already been piloted by Ozurgeti municipality for devising the "Open Government Partnership (OGP) Local Action Plan for 2023-2025”.
The participants of the “CivicLab” consultations were selected through an open and transparent registration process. A selected group representing public, civil, education and business sectors worked in the mixed sub-groups (through a “traffic light” method, participants were attributed proportionally to different groups so that multi-stakeholder participation is ensured in each group) on the following 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. The participants identified problems in these thematic areas, formulated ideas and assessed their realisation. As a result of the consultations, the participants developed a concrete action plan. The outcomes of the public consultations will be reflected in 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.
