The aim of the project is to support the leadership of the municipality of Rustavi city, the third biggest city of Georgia, with creating a system of participative budgeting, hereby promoting greater accountability and citizens' participation in local decision-making. Participative local budgeting is introduced to create a more transparent allocation of funds. This is becoming increasingly relevant with the developing economy and quickly growing population in Rustavi. A first important step is the establishment of proper tools for communication with and information to citizens, which will foster their inclusion in the decision making on spending priorities, and the monitoring of the implementation thereof . This was already endeavoured by the municipality of Rustavi with the establishment of citizens' services centres. These centres are one-stop-shops in which citizens can have contact with the front office, which subsequently channel information to the back office. In order to let this run smoothly, the municipality of Rustavi has invested much in these centres to utilise them as a proper tool for participative budgeting. The new strategy for participative budgeting aims at strengthening the citizens centres and their municipal staff as a better tool to collect feedback on local issues, and introduce the citizens to participative budgeting.

To ensure the progress of these plans, the civil servants will be educated with adequate skills and knowledge. The municipality will be supported to facilitate the participative budget. This will be done through capacity building of local administrative staff and the development of institutional mechanisms. The project has three strategic objectives:
• Increasing the capacity of municipal administrative structures.
• Promoting dialogue between local CSOs, public groups and municipal government on city's budget planning and execution.
• Creation of institutionalized mechanisms for participatory budgeting in the city.