Even as leaders made their way to Brussels for the October 22 2008 Georgia donors' conference, controversy gathered, with watchdog Transparency International saying that the conference lacked transparency and accountability, and Georgian opposition parties announcing plans for an anti-government rally in Tbilisi next month.
On the eve of the conference, Bulgaria added its name to the list of donors, with a foreign ministry spokesperson announcing at a news conference that assistance to the equivalent of a million leva would be paid to Georgia over three fiscal years, in the form of projects such as scholarships for Georgian students to study at Bulgarian universities.
The European Commission and the World Bank will co-chair, and the French and the Czech Presidencies of the European Council will co-host, the donors' conference.
In a statement, Transparency International Georgia criticised what it termed a lack of transparency and local consultation ahead of the conference, where decisions on hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid to Georgia will be made.
Commenting on what Transparency International called the "opaque" decision-making process, Tamuna Karosanidze, executive director of Tbilisi-based TI Georgia said, "Aid given behind closed doors lacks accountability, to the taxpayers of donor nations as much as to the citizens of Georgia. The lack of transparency in giving this aid makes it less likely that money will reach those most in need. If donors want aid to support Georgia's development, they must ensure that this aid is transparent and democratically accountable."
Decision-making at the conference will be based on a "Joint Needs Assessment", an extensive document drawn up by a mission co-ordinated by the World Bank and the United Nations.
The Joint Needs Assessment estimates that Georgia will require $ 3.25 billion (2.38 billion euro) over the next three years in budget support, social sector support and infrastructure development.
Transparency International said that this was more than Georgia's government planned to spend in 2009, and the equivalent of nearly $1000 for every person living in the country.
"Allocating these huge sums behind closed doors on the basis of a secret document does not set a good example for Georgian democracy to follow," Karosanidze said. "If Georgia's citizens can have no say in how this money will be spent, democracy in Georgia will be weakened rather than strengthened. Aid will only be received positively in Georgia if Georgian citizens are confident that it will be well spent, which is something that only wide-spread civic involvement and transparency can achieve."
Transparency International said that the donors' conference lacked transparency in three respects. First, despite calls by Georgian civic organizations for a more inclusive assessment process, the process of compiling the Joint Needs Assessment did not involve consultations with local civic organisations or with the Georgian parliament.
Second, despite the centrality of the Joint Needs Assessment to the future of Georgia, its contents remain secret at the request of the Georgian government. "For example, it is unclear how $700 million out of the nearly $1 billion earmarked for 'social sector needs' will be spent.
"While TI Georgia understands that some limited sections of the Joint Needs Assessment may involve private sector data that should remain confidential at this point in time, this should not apply to the document as a whole."
Third, Transparency International said, the aid conference itself was taking place behind closed doors.
"Despite repeated requests, no Georgian representatives apart from the government's small team, and no independent international observers, will be allowed to follow conference proceedings"
"The lack of transparency and democratic accountability in the current aid negotiations sets a bad precedent for the later use of these funds inside Georgia, and increases the likelihood of misallocation, waste and corruption," Karosanidze said.
TI Georgia called on donor representatives at the Brussels conference to abide by their commitments made in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and during the 2008 High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana, where donors stated that "transparency and accountability are essential elements for development results".
"Donors must use the conference to establish clear transparency and accountability procedures for all parties involved in aid to Georgia, beginning with the publication of comprehensive and detailed budgetary breakdowns," TI Georgia said.
It called on the government of Georgia to immediately release the full text of the Joint Needs Assessment, with the exception of those passages that contain sensitive private sector data, and to put discussion of the Joint Needs Assessment on the parliamentary agenda.
Meanwhile, news agency AFP said that Georgia's opposition had called on supporters to rally in Tbilisi on November 7, the first anniversary of a crackdown on anti-government protesters, Georgian newspapers reported on October 21.
AFP said that the protest call marks the first sign of opposition activity since the war with Russia in August over the rebel region of South Ossetia. Opposition leader Levan Gachechiladze, who failed to unseat president Mikheil Saakashvili in a presidential election earlier in 2008, said that the rally outside parliament would call for Saakashvili's resignation, the daily Akhali Taoba (New Generation) reported.