The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe organised a regional conference on 6 - 7 December 2017 in Tbilisi, Georgia, which brought together around 100 mayors and local elected representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus. Numerous newly-elected Georgian mayors took part in the event, as well as representatives of national associations of local authorities, civil society organisations and expert.
The aim of the conference was to enable peer-to peer exchange on good practices to promote and strengthen ethics, transparency and citizen participation at local level in these countries. Participants addressed these questions through concrete examples of local initiatives that were implemented in 2017, by twelve local authorities from Armenia, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.
The conference was opened by the Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure, Zurab ALAVIDZE, the Mayor of Tbilisi, Kakha KALADZE, the Secretary General of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Andreas KIEFER, Ambassador Janos HERMAN, the European Union Delegation to Georgia, and the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Tbilisi, Cristian URSE.
On the eve of the conference, 5 December 2017, a workshop on ‘Local initiatives: managing and communicating the change’ brought together the mayors and project co-ordinators implementing initiatives on ethical governance.
In addition, on 8 December 2017, the Secretary General of the Congress will intervene at the 6th General Assembly of the National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia (NALAG).
The conference is organised by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities within the thematic programme “Strengthening institutional frameworks for local governance”, implemented jointly with the Council of Europe Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform, Directorate General of Democracy. This programme is funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe, through the Partnership for Good Governance (PGG) 2015-2017 for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.
Interview with the EU Ambassador Janos HERMAN, EU delegation to Georgia
