The first day of PDF Poland-CEE is over, but the unconference event begins tomorrow. There will be a session on PMO work, so follow along with the Twitter hashtag #PDFPoland and on the event’s website.
News from the parliamentary monitoring community:
In Libya, a new parliamentary monitoring project was launched called Eye on GNC. Check out the project’s website, and a quick news blip here.
In Pakistan, PILDAT launched their Assessment of the Quality of Democracy in Pakistan for the year 2012. Read the story on PILDAT’s website.
In the US and the UK, the Sunlight Foundation and mySociety were awarded significant grants to expand their civic innovation programs. Read more about it on Sunlight’s blog and mySociety’s blog.
In South Africa, Parliamentary Monitoring Group launched its review of the parliament in 2012. The review details significant issues that arose during the last year in the parliament, gives awards to specific committees for exemplary work, and provides advice for improvement.
In Spain, Access Info Europe launched a campaign to raise the €3,000 fine imposed on them by the Spanish Supreme Court for attempting to access public information. They quickly raised more than €10,000 from supporters.
In Ecuador, Observatorio Legislativo has been releasing visualizations of different data from the legislature on Twitter. For example, graphs of the number of bills that have received objections, members of the Assembly with the highest number of missed votes, and the types of initiatives that the CAL has passed.
In Ukraine, Chesno analyzed the first session of the new parliament and concluded that there were several systemic problems that still had not been addressed, namely the problem of MPs breaking the rules and voting for other members. Read their analysis here.
In Tunisia, the organization OpenGovTN honored prominent activists working to make government data publicly accessible. Among them was the PMO Al Bawsala, who also recently released their 2012 annual report of activities.
In Zimbabwe, Parliamentary Monitoring Trust has begun posting a weekly newsletter on its Facebook page (must be logged into Facebook to view).
In Hungary, the organization ParlTrack, which organizes and makes available parliamentary information for the European Parliament, launched a fundraising drive on indiegogo.
In India, PRS Legislative Research is accepting applications for their LAMP Fellowship, a program which funds a fellow to work for a member of parliament as a legislative assistant.
Other related news:
The Parliament of the UK released their Publication Scheme and Guide to Information, which consists of the rules that the parliament has adopted on the release of all types of parliamentary information.
The US House of Representatives announced that they would be making all floor summaries and legislation available in machine-readable, bulk, XML format online.
The International Budget Partnership launched its annual Open Budget Survey that evaluates to what level governments around the world give the public access and opportunities for input into their national budget.
An article was published in the Guardian about why fighting for government transparency and accountability is crucial to eradicate poverty around the world.
Resources:
mySociety is offering free technical assistance to groups who would like to set up a Alvateli or FixMyStreet platform anywhere in the world. Alvateli is a platform that allows the public to easily make Freedom of Information requests, and FixMyStreet allows the public to report problems with streets to local government.
The Transparency & Accountability Initiative is collecting input on its Opening Government Guide aiming to support it as a living document. Read more about it in this post on their website.
Chris Blattman posted a link to an academic paper on whether or not transparency improves parliamentary performance in authoritarian regimes.
General Assembly posted an article called “5 Steps for Getting Started in Data Science.”
Events:
Open Data Day is coming up on February 23 and many groups are holding events at locations all over the world. Read more about it on this post on the Open Knowledge Foundation’s blog or the homepage of Open Data Day.
Recent blog posts:
Grant opportunity for CSOs working on social accountability (Feb 1)
Call for ideas: Monitoring the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness (Jan 30)
Democratic innovation in open government (Jan 25)
Integrating partnerships to open parliaments: OGP’s meeting in Santiago (Jan 24)
What opening parliamentary information can tell us about our parliaments (Vol. 3) (Jan 22)
Apply for the Sunlight’s TransparencyCamp International Program (Jan 18)
Engaging citizens in the parliamentary process: What have we learned? (Jan 17)
‘Ask Your MP’ communication tool launched in Serbia (Jan 16)
OpeningParliament is now on Facebook (Jan 15)