Telavi. On july 7 Civil Society Institute (CSI) held a workshop in Telavi on improving enabling environment for CSOs. The workshop was held within the project of ''Georgian Civil Society Sustainability Initiative''.

CSI has initiated Georgia’s CSOs declaration on key principles, which was already signed by more than 230 CSOs. This declaration considers transparency and accountability as one of the main principle for Civil Society Organizations. The project ''Civil Society Sustainability Initiative'' envisages creating a conceptual document and a guideline on CSOs’ transparency and accountability to increase their effectiveness, sustainability and institutional development. CSI acknowledges the importance of participatory approach and aims to achieve wide consensus among CSOs through engaging local regional organizations in the process of outlining a concept and a guideline on transparency and accountability principle.

During the regional workshops CSI will also discuss critical aspects of the Civil Society’s legal environment in Georgia, presenting main findings of the study, which examines existing state funding mechanisms for CSOs on national and sub-national level. The discussion will include key issues related to CSOs’ financial sustainability, such as: a) grant issuing authority for local municipalities; b) opportunities to use assets created by grants for economic purpose; c) tax regulations for supporting volunteerism in Georgia.