On December 19, nine Georgian Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were awarded the CSO Transparency Prize. These organizations are: Transparency International-Georgia (Tbilisi), Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (Tbilisi), Georgian Charter of Journalist’s Ethics (Tbilisi), Regional Development Center (Telavi), Association Atinati (Zugdidi), Orbeliani Georgia (Tbilisi), Economic Policy Research Center (Tbilisi), Georgian Center for Psycho-Social Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (Tbilisi), and CiDA (Rustavi). The CSO transparency award will be given on an annual basis from this year onwards.
These organizations are part of the CSO Transparency Initiative that calls on civil society organizations to publish information on their projects, budgets and funding sources on the special web platform (www.cso.ge). The Initiative was launched in September, 2016 with ACCESS and CiDA support and aims to increase public awareness and trust towards CSO activities, to debunk fake accusations and attempts of discrediting the civil society sector in Georgia, and to establish a culture of greater transparency in the sector.
Since the launch of the initiative, 34 civil society organizations have joined the initiative and have published information about their projects, funding, and donors. This time, 9 of the 34 organizations were awarded for being the most active and transparent. The award ceremony took place at the Annual Meeting of the Regional Civil Society Network.
