The Inter-Parliamentary Union has requested the OpeningParliament.org community’s assistance. Following the first two publications in the IPU’s parliamentary self-assessment toolkit, the IPU is now developing a project called Indicators for Democratic Parliaments (writeup available in French here). The publication will help parliaments to identify strengths and weaknesses, set appropriate targets for development, and monitor progress towards their goals. Indicators will also provide internationally sanctioned criteria that PMOs can use in their monitoring of parliamentary performance and functioning.

How can PMOs help? As a first step, PMO community members with experience using indicators are encouraged to provide brief background information and an example of their tools here. Of particular interest are PMO monitoring tools that have been used for a period of 3 years or more.

After this initial development stage, IPU will also seek further feedback, including possibly through hosting a Google hangout with PMOs. For further information or to provide feedback or other suggestions, please feel free to contact me ([email protected]) or Andy Richardson at the IPU ([email protected]).

Coming out of the regional meeting of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) held in Santiago, Chile, from January 10-11, it’s clear that the movement to open the world’s parliaments has a number of allies outside of civil society and parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs). Bringing these actors together may offer a huge opportunity to bring about democratic reform and more open, responsive and accountable parliaments – and governments as a whole.

Click here to read more.

This post also appeared on the blog of the Open Government Partnership.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) has been successful in bringing aboard nearly 60 countries to make commitments–some more concrete than others–toward transparency and openness in government. It has been barely more than a year since governments began submitting action plans to OGP, outlining the ways in which they would work to be more accountable and responsive to citizens. Now, as we approach OGP’s Steering Committee meeting this week, the focus has increasingly shifted toward monitoring countries’ progress in meeting the commitments that members have made. That’s why OGP has set up the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM), a team of five technical experts and three senior advisors, that will aim to provide objective analysis on each country’s progress on their OGP action plans. This constitutes an important next phase in OGP’s development.

OGP has sought to lead by example by engaging civil society and the public, seeking a high level of participation in the development of its guiding principles. But one part of the conversation has been underemphasized; namely, the contributions that parliaments can play in supporting and overseeing implementation of OGP commitments. As has been asserted previously, the world’s democratic governments already have a built-in IRM: parliaments, for whom oversight of the performance and policies of the executive branch is a core responsibility.

Click here to read more.

Now that the OpeningParliament community has launched the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness, the focus of activity is shifting to using it as a tool for advocacy at the country level. More specifically, organizations are seeking to answer the question: how can the Declaration can be used not only to support “open parliaments” for the sake of openness, but also to support the higher level goal of more responsive, accountable and democratic parliaments?

Obviously, the Declaration is only one of many advocacy tools, but it can hopefully serve as a useful roadmap for the world’s parliaments on what a truly open, democratic parliament should look like. It can also help stimulate a global conversation around parliamentary openness between the OpeningParliament community and parliaments. Perhaps most importantly, as John Wonderlich from the Sunlight Foundation put it, the Declaration can help to “validate the work” of parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs) worldwide – so that when a PMO seeks to engage the Speaker of Parliament in a particular country, they are doing so not just as an individual NGO or as a group of individual activists, but also a part of a reputable international movement.

Click here to read more.

As Dan noted last week, the Inter-Parliamentary Union graciously invited us to present the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness at its 127th Assembly in Quebec. Participating on the panel with me, were Melissa Ortiz Massó of Fundar and the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency and Eric Mill of the Sunlight Foundation (I was representing the National Democratic Institute). 

Although we had just one half-hour to discuss the document, the Declaration received positive feedback from members of parliament from Namibia, Australia and Canada. Speaking at the joint IPU-Association of Secretaries General of Parliament meeting on Parliamentary Representation and Communication and the Role of Social Media, IPU Secretary General Anders Johnsson stated his belief that the Declaration “represents an opportunity”  for parliaments to engage with civil society.

We also began preliminary discussions with the IPU and Global Centre for ICT in Parliament about potential opportunities for collaboration with the international PMO community moving ahead. Although these conversations are only preliminary, please feel free to share your thoughts on how collaboration with the IPU or a network of parliamentarians internationally can benefit both communities.

Photo by Andrew Mandelbaum at the 127th Assembly of the IPU on Oct. 24, 2012.

Today at 11:30am EST, the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness will be presented at a session of the 127th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

The IPU, established in 1889, is the international organization of parliaments of sovereign states, which includes membership from more than 160 national parliaments. It is described as the focal point for worldwide parliamentary dialogue. The 127th Assembly, held in Québec City, Canada, from October 21-26, 2012, brings together more than 1,300 delegates and observers from over 120 member parliaments and international organizations to facilitate debate, dialogue and co-operation among parliamentarians on the international stage.

Click here to read more.

This article was written as a joint statement of the participants at the PMO Leaders Conference held in Washington, D.C. from April 30-May 2, 2012.

For the first time, a broad and diverse gathering of civil society representatives from 38 countries convened in Washington this week and established a shared commitment to advocate for strong, open parliaments that embody citizens’ voices.  

The conference, which ran from April 30 to May 2, provided an opportunity for parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs) from all regions of the world to share their experiences and good practices on a host of topics, from monitoring political finance to advocating for greater transparency of parliamentary information.  The conference was co-hosted by the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency, the Sunlight Foundation and NDI.

U.S. Under Secretary of State Maria Otero, keynote speaker at the conference, observed that, “Parliaments or legislatures are, in a sense, the most direct line that government has to the governed, especially when it comes to communication and to representation of the people’s wants and needs.  The question that brings us here tonight — and to this great conference — is how can we build on those conduits of communication — between elected officials and citizens, to increase openness, transparency, and accountability in government.”  She said the conference was “an important initiative and is an important undertaking for those of us who strive for more transparent, accountable and open governments around the world.”

The PMOs at the conference agreed to continue to work together in a number of concrete areas, including a shared declaration of principles on parliamentary transparency. The draft document reviewed by the delegates recognized that parliamentary information belongs to the public and can be used by citizens most effectively only if it is provided within a broader culture of transparency and openness. The draft specifies categories of parliamentary information that should be made public and provides guidance on how to make this information more easily accessible to citizens. 

In addition, the draft document provides guidance on enabling improved electronic, online access and analysis of parliamentary information.  Information released online in structured open data formats, as proposed in the draft principles, allows citizens and civil society groups to analyze and reuse parliamentary information using the full range of technology tools available. 

The PMOs expressed broad support for the parliamentary transparency declaration and committed to finalizing the text within the next two months, after additional consultations and after incorporating input received at the conference. The working document discussed at the conference is available here.

The PMOs also agreed to continue their networking to advance shared interests and objectives through greater online collaboration and through periodic meetings.  Several concrete initiatives were discussed to increase collaboration on technology used by PMOs, including initiatives led by mySociety, which runs many of the United Kingdom’s best known democracy websites, and by an informal technology working group coordinated by Transparência Hacker, a Brazilian network that includes parliamentarians and parliamentary staffers.

Additionally, conference participants agreed to use their informal network of PMOs to share information about parliamentary transparency, an effort being coordinated initially by PRS Legislative Research from India. Building on the experiences and benefits of regional collaboration demonstrated by the Latin American Network on Legislative Transparency, PMOs from both Central and Eastern Europe, from the Middle East and North Africa, and from Africa indicated their desire to continue closer dialogue and collaboration among PMOs within their respective regions. 

A host of other possible initiatives were discussed — from exchanging staff among PMOs and providing technical support to new parliamentary monitoring organizations, to supporting parliamentary monitoring organizations under threat.   The conference also assessed possible opportunities to advance parliamentary openness and transparency by building on the success of the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative chaired by Brazil, which recently assembled 1,200 delegates from over 73 countries for its first annual meeting.

The PMOs also indicated a particular desire to increase constructive engagement and dialogue with parliaments and parliamentary associations to help decrease the gap between citizens and their elected representatives.  At the conference, Anders B. Johnsson, the secretary general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), reviewed efforts by the IPU to support parliamentary development and welcomed the possibility of greater cooperation between parliamentary bodies and the growing community of parliamentary monitoring organizations.  PMOs also explored options for future cooperation with the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, an initiative launched by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in partnership with the IPU, which works to strengthen parliaments through the use of technology. 

As Mónica Pachón, a conference participant and the chair of Congreso Visible from Colombia has noted, “In many countries, parliaments are not exactly popular.  If the discourse of PMOs doesn’t question the negative image that people sometimes have about Congress — then we are not doing much.  If citizens don’t realize that Congress is a very important branch for a political system to work, then we’re not improving the quality of our democracies.” 

The gathering was supported by the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the World Bank Institute and the Embassy of Mexico to the United States, whose ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan, presented at the conference and hosted the conference dinner with U.S Under Secretary of State Otero. 

Worldwide, there are more than 190 parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs) observing more than 80 national parliaments, according to a recent publication by the NDI and the World Bank Institute, Strengthening Parliamentary Accountability, Citizen Engagement and Access to Information: A Global Survey of Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations.