Spanish Platform Dyntra Ranks Tbilisi at Just 19% Transparency
Dyntra, or the Dynamic Transparency Index, is a collaborative platform that works to measure and manage open governance and transparency in cities, regions, and public institutions around the world. Its latest rankings for Tbilisi put the city at a dismal 19.3% transparency (where 100% is perfect transparency), with information publicly available on just 11 out of Dyntra’s 57 indicators.
The platform evaluates the transparency of a municipality’s administration by looking solely at the official website of City Hall. This methodology raises questions of effectiveness, particularly in Georgia, where government websites are not always up to date – and the English versions of websites rarely have all the information that the Georgian versions do. Dyntra looks at the English version of the government’s website, and the native-language version using Google translate. Many citizens get information by phone or in person, or from Tbilisi’s district governments that help disperse City Hall’s central agenda. However, internet access and use continues to increase among the Georgian population, and especially in Tbilisi internet access, particularly on smartphones, is exceedingly common. The City Hall website is a resource for many residents to find information about municipal programs, laws, news, and events.
As Dyntra cofounder Erwin de Grave describes the project, “Dyntra is a free global online citizen-driven platform that evaluates in real-time the transparency level of public organizations by connecting each indicator with the information on the organization’s website. Any citizen can actualize the organization’s transparency at any time during the year.”
In reality, the platform evaluates not overall municipal transparency, but the transparency and accessibility of a municipal government’s website, as submitted by the public in a crowd-sourced model, and then verified by an in-house expert. While there are several flaws to this approach, and many important factors are overlooked, there is certainly a benefit to a city government having a simple, transparent website. De Grave defends Dyntra’s approach, saying “we have a citizen focus, and the citizens, when they find out more information about a public organization, generally visit the organization’s website,” adding, “if an organization says it is transparent, that means that they have the information published and accessible for any[one] through their website.”
“It is important to know that everyone can evaluate any organization within Dyntra. That’s why we have a two-step process: 1) evaluation that can be done by anyone, and 2) verification of the evaluation by an expert of our team,” explains de Grave. The platform can be updated and edited in real time, any time of the year.
The Dyntra ranking scores Tbilisi highest in the categories of “citizen participation and collaboration” (33%), “access to information and active advertising” (31%), and “economic and financial transparency” (20%). On the lower end, City Hall scores 0% for “open data,” and “transparency in contracting services,” 11% for “public works and urban planning” and 13% for general “municipal transparency.”
Much of the information for which Dyntra evaluates Tbilisi as weak or lacking in transparency, however, can be found on the websites of the central government and other government bodies – as per Georgian government standards. For example, Dyntra deducts points from Tbilisi City Hall for not having “the remuneration of Mayor and Aldermen” and “the declaration of assets and property of the Mayor and Aldermen” published, but that information is freely available for all public servants at www.declaration.gov.ge in Georgian. If the charge is that a governmental institution cannot be transparent without publishing all such information on its own webpage, the solution is likely a much heavier, clunkier web interface – the impact such changes might have on the lives of citizens or on the quality of Georgian democracy is unclear.
Anyone can submit evaluations of a city government’s online transparency to Dyntra, including the city itself. According to de Grave, Tbilisi City Hall has not responded to the transparency ranking publication or registered with Dyntra to begin the process of self-evaluation.
For reference, in 2018, Transparency International ranked Georgia 41 out of 180 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index, with a score of 58 out of 100 (100 being the least amount of perceived public sector corruption).
Among the municipalities the Spanish company has evaluated, Madrid, Spain, leads Europe with 91.23% transparency.
For a more detailed breakdown of the score and for more information, visit www.dyntra.org.
By Samantha Guthrie