Georgia Revenue Watch and the Transparency of Public Finances Coalition

In 2007 RWI's local partners in Georgia–the Georgia Revenue Watch program of the Open Society Georgia Foundation and the coalition "For Transparency of Public Finances"–launched a major campaign advocating for Georgia's implementation of EITI in connection with its sizeable BTC pipeline revenues. The program initiated a letter writing campaign to high-level ministers, organized a multi-stakeholder EITI Conference in Tbilisi, and post-EITI conference, and encouraged reporters to conduct their own investigations into budgetary issues through a competition for the best piece of journalism in this field. With RWI support the program also translated the official EITI Sourcebook into Georgian for distribution among interested NGOs and parliamentarians. The group is developing a sample reporting template for oil and gas transit revenues, which has not yet been done by the EITI Secretariat/supporting parties but has been discussed in the EITI Board and could have important applications in other hydrocarbon transit countries, including Ukraine where some civil society organizations are considering a project.