Council of Europe Regional Academy on Participatory Democracy for Kakheti Region gathered 22 representatives of city halls, city councils, and civil society organizations from 8 municipalities: Telavi, Akhmeta, Gurjaani, Dedoplistskaro, Lagodekhi, Signagi, Kvareli and Sagarejo.
The academy aimed at raising awareness and to enhance knowledge of representatives of local authorities and civil society in good governance and civil participation standards and tools of the Council of Europe, such as the “Guidelines for civil participation in political decision making” and Committee of Ministers “Recommendation to Member States on the participation of citizens in local public life”. In the course of the two-day event, participants had an opportunity to be engaged in discussions around civil participation processes, good practices and local challenges in participation process. The participants learned about various participatory tools developed by the Council of Europe such as Civil Participation in Decision-Making Toolkit, “CivicLab”, “Uchange”, which support municipalities to involve citizens effectively in participatory processes and to build dialogue platforms around pertinent policy issues. Moreover, the participants were introduced to the deliberative participation mechanism, “Citizens’ Assemblies”, which proposes a methodology for organizing city assemblies, which allows citizens to be better engaged in decision-making, learn about the topic of consultation from the field experts, and exchange the views of local stakeholders.
The academy served as a platform to local representatives to exchange experiences and ideas on tools and approaches for achieving effective and inclusive civil participation in political decision-making.
The Council of Europe already implemented regional academies in Tbilisi, Imereti and Guria.
The event was organised in the framework of the Project “Strengthening Participatory Democracy and Human Rights at Local Level in Georgia”, implemented by the Directorate General of Democracy, Division Elections and Participatory Democracy and Congress of Local and Regional Authorities within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023 with the financial contribution of Austrian Development Cooperation.
