Goal: To promote public understanding of government spending and encourage citizen engagement with the national budgeting process.

TI Georgia will:

●    Create an online budget calculator which will allow anyone with an Internet connection to explore an interactive version of Georgia’s budget, based on actual budget figures and economic estimates, including by using intuitive visualizations. Starting with the official national budget, users will be able to make changes to the budget by increasing or decreasing spending on key areas and raising or lowering taxes and government revenues. Users will learn what anticipated effects their spending changes might have. The modified budget can be shared through Facebook, which is very popular in Georgia, and other social networking sites. Also, a “Citizens’ Budget” which will consist of the average budget created on the site will be published, so that policymakers can see the average priorities of citizens using the site. This website will also give citizens ways to explore the current budget, such as by viewing how much of their taxes go toward certain programs, and by comparing the budget to the size of Georgia’s economy. TI Georgia will reach out to Georgia’s supreme audit institution, the Chamber of Control, with the goal of securing their collaboration on the website to ensure that it presents as detailed and accurate a picture of Georgia’s budget as possible.

●    For those areas of Georgia where the Internet is not yet commonplace, a series of infographics and visualizations of key budget data which will be created and provided to regional newspapers. These graphics will help readers to understand the relative sizes of the government’s revenue streams, the relative amounts of various types of expenditures, and an explanation of key budget information. In order to ensure that the graphics encourage engagement with the information they contain, it will be ensured that all graphics exhibit excellent visual and informational design, and localized versions of the graphics will be created, showing readers in the regions information about their particular area, and how it compares to other parts of Georgia in terms of its contributions to the national budget and allocations from the budget, to the extent that the national budget allows such a break-down.  

●    Once they are developed, release updated versions of both the infographics and online budget calculator to coincide with each new state budget that is released during the course of this project. Project staff will seek to release an updated version of the budget calculator within a few days of a new draft budget being introduced to Parliament and encourage people to submit their personal budget while the national budget is discussed in the legislature. In this period, project staff will organize street events, encouraging people passing by to create their own budgets. Policy makers will be encouraged to look at the tool and the budgets designed by citizens. Project staff will also organize town-hall-style meetings in Georgia’s regions where they will explain Georgia’s budget, and what changing budget allocations mean for local citizens. Feedback from attendees will be forwarded directly to the Georgian Government, and posted online.

●    At least five articles and blog articles analyzing and discussing the distribution of state resources in accessible language.

●    At least five university lectures and workshops on public spending, a journalistic reporting competition on budgetary issues, a series of street events in Tbilisi and two other cities to promote better understanding of public spending and a workshop for journalists and civil society activists on budgetary analysis.