With IRIM’s experience in conducting the ‘Monitoring transparency in websites of state agencies’ survey to evaluate transparency levels of the government organizations, the assignment for this project was to re-invent the assessment tool with international best practices, at the same time being applicable to local and regional level government agencies. IRIM’s purpose for this project is to share experience for monitoring government digital transparency in the Central Asian region.  

The overall objective of the ‘Empowering CSOs for Improved Government Digital Transparency’ project is to develop an assessment tool for CSOs to monitor government digital transparency that will enable active monitoring and recommendations for the government. The project has three main program activities. 

1. To enable tool for assessing the government digital transparency and promotion of the right to information that will be available for the Central Asian regions to adapt to their regional needs. 
2. To train a local CSO in Kyrgyzstan to undertake the assessment of the government digital transparency, who will act as trainers and experts in the Central Asian region. The assessment training will be held in Kyrgyzstan and the assessment will be held of Kyrgyz and Mongolian government agencies.  
3. To enable networking in order to promote future collaborative initiatives and knowledge sharing beyond grant activities in the region. The project team organized an event with representatives of the Central Asian region countries to introduce the methodology and findings of the assessment.  

IRIM implemented the project in 4 milestones phases.  

• Developed the assessment tool. Desk review and research on relevant international tools and experiences of assessing government transparency. 

• Pilot the assessment tool. Piloting the assessment tool in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. The project team chose a partner organization in Kyrgyzstan and started the data collection by training the research team of Kyrgyz partner.    

• Analyzing the pilot data and developing the report.  

• Finalized the assessment tool and launched the index with representatives from Central Asia.  

Mongolian and Kyrgyzstan team both conducted the research from 20 government organizations each. The questionnaire consisted of 3 main sections (domains). The questionnaire comprises of the following:  

• Legal environment – Review and analysis of relevant legal documents and data of existing indexes.  

• Organizational capacity – Interview from the government officials regarding the procedures and resources to ensure the digital transparency.  

• Digital transparency – Evaluating whether the government organization website is accessible to anyone no matter what browser or tool is being used.