On December 23 the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) together with the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) presented the results of the interim alternative monitoring reports on the implementation of Public Administration Reform (PAR) Action Plan for 2019 – 2020.
Event participants were welcomed by Giorgi KLDIASHVILI – Executive Director of IDFI, Colombe DE MERCEY – Team leader for Governance and Human Capital, Delegation of the European Union to Georgia, Vakhushti MENABDE – Democratic Institutions Support Program Director, GYLA and Ketevan TSANAVA – Head of the Public Administration Unit of the Department of Policy Planning and Coordination of the Government Administration of Georgia.
During the presentation participants discussed the following directions of the PAR Action Plan for 2019 – 2020: Policy Planning and Coordination, Accountability and Public Service Delivery. As the monitoring of the Action Plan revealed:
- In some cases, indicators and targets defined for the confirmation of the implementation of the objectives envisaged in the Public Administration Reform Action Plan for 2019 – 2020 undermine the significance of objectives and/or make it impossible to measure their implementation.
- Although the Action Plan for 2019-2020 has been significantly improved in comparison to the previous plan, the challenges revealed through the monitoring show that current objectives and indicators still require refinement according the S.M.A.R.T. criteria. In addition, defining more activities and setting realistic deadlines for their implementation is necessary in order to achieve the objectives.
- The Public Administration Reform two-year Action Plan does not outline activities for the first six months of 2020 under some objectives and outlines just one activity for others, which delays the process of achieving objectives.
- For the majority of the objectives the data could not be obtained for the interim monitoring purposes, since most of the activities required for their implementation are planned for the end of 2020.
- Out of the four objectives envisaged by the Action Plan for the reporting period in the Policy Planning and Coordination direction one IS partly implemented and three are not implemented. As for the activities, out of the ten activities three are fully implemented, one - mostly implemented, two – partly implemented and four are not implemented.
- For the first six months of 2020, two out of the five objectives under the Accountability direction set out in the Action Plan are partly implemented and three are unimplemented. As for activities, only one activity was outlined for the first six months of 2020, which is unimplemented.
- For the first six months of 2020, out of the seven objectives under the Public Service Delivery direction set out in the Action Plan one is fully implemented, one – mostly implemented, three – partly implemented and two are unimplemented. As for the activities, out of seven activities outlined for the first six months of 2020 one is mostly implemented, two are partly implemented and four are unimplemented.
PAR Tracker - the electronic monitoring platform for Public Administration Reform, which ensures the involvement of external users in the monitoring process, was also presented at the meeting. The platform combines practical information on Public Administration Reform and ensures external user engagement by sharing comments / feedback on published information as well as on the thematic directions / objectives / activities / indicators of the Public Administration Reform Action Plan.
