News from the parliamentary monitoring community:
In Croatia, a new freedom of information law has been adopted. The law outlines the types of information that must be made public and calls for proactive publishing of this data by government agencies and bodies. GONG, a Croatian parliamentary monitoring organization, provided input and amendments to the law during its drafting, which were adopted.
In Botswana, the Botswana Speaks Parliamentary Initiative was recently launched with the help of Gov2u and other partners. The initiative, similar to the USpeak platform in Uganda, intends to improve governance and bring more voices into the policy-making discussion by connecting MPs directly with citizens through SMS messaging.
In Mexico, Fundar continues to work with MPs who are interested in redesigning the parliament’s website in order to make it more responsive to citizens. MPs cite the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency’s index and the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness as guides for this work. MPs held a Legislative Dialogues for a Digital Mexico meeting with activists, civil society organizations, and scholars calling for the creation of a new federal agency that would address a growing digital divide, work towards universal access to information, and drive Mexico’s broad digital agenda.
In Italy, OpenPolis, which monitors Italy’s upper and lower houses and provides in-depth profiles of many of Italy’s MPs (which continue to be highlighted in media reports on individual members), launched its report on the activities of parliament, which received some news coverage. OpenPolis also announced that it will begin a budget tracking project called Open Bilancio.
In Germany, an official government data portal was launched on Tuesday, but it has received criticism from many civil society organization including Parliament Watch and the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland. The CSOs launched a joint statement and website with a number of criticisms and recommendations.
In South Africa, Parliamentary Monitoring Group allows for citizens to comment on draft bills and upcoming hearings by providing both the text of the bill and the contact information for a staff member handling the bill. An updated list of hearings and legislation is listed on their website.
In Romania, the Institute for Public Policy’s work on the Romanian parliament was highlighted in recent media, outlining interesting demographic information about MPs including that only 12% of the current parliament are women.
In Ukraine, members of the opposition have demanded a personal voting system that would require each MP to have their fingerprint scanned before voting. The new system was recently tested, as reported by Chesno, which has stepped up its criticism of the Ukrainian parliament for not requiring MPs to vote for themselves.
In Spain, the Coalition for Access led by Access Info Europe has called for extensive changes to the current transparency bill, a measure they consider to be a very poor attempt at addressing transparency issues. Also in Spain, data from the group Qué hacen los deputados was highlighted in recent news, pointing out that the poor record of many new senators in asking questions of the Spanish government.
In the EU, the French group La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) donated 1,000 EUR to Parltrack, which makes data from the European Parliament open for re-use. One tool developed by LQDN using data “liberated” by Parltrack, Political Memory, tracks MEP’s voting and provides brief member profiles. (Correction: The update mistakenly called Political Memory a tool developed by Parltrack, which is incorrect.)
In Zimbabwe, Parliamentary Monitoring Trust is using a Scribd document library to house public documents, legislation, committee briefings, and its weekly e-Newsletter.
In Serbia, the coalition Open Parliament launched another video on their YouTube channel where they ask members of the public for their thoughts on parliament.
In Malawi, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace has joined other civil society groups in pushing for term limits for MPs.
In Hungary, K-Monitor’s recent criticism of the transparency and accountability of proposed political finance laws appeared in the Budapest Times.
In Tunisia, the work of Al Bawsala in monitoring the Tunisian Constituent Assembly continues to garner media attention. Read this recent profile.
Other related news:
In Australia, the parliament argued that offices should be subject to FOI laws only when the information in question is administrative in nature.
In Kyrgyzstan, MP Dastan Bekeshev called for more open, transparent Parliamentary budgeting procedures.
In Canada, MP Kennedy Stewart has urged the House to consider using online petitions as a means of opening parliamentary debate to public voices. This is a timely development as a new report titled “Lost in Translation or Just Lost?” argues that the Canadian Parliament is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the face of growing external pressures.
Resources:
Loomio, a tech tool designed to help groups make decisions, effectively balances individual voices against the need for collective action by making it easy for individuals to introduce topics of discussion or present proposals for a vote.
The UC Berkeley School of Journalism recently announced that they will be offering free web-based courses this week on a range of data related topics, including data visualizations, spreadsheet basics, and data mapping.
Drawing on the experiences of The City of New York, The World Bank, the State of Maryland, and others, Socrata’s newly released “Open Data Field Guide” provides policymakers and practitioners with a collection of best-practices and guidelines to using open data in policy making.
In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, VVA’s, or voting advice applications, have been launched in the last few years by government agencies. These applications analyze a user’s answers to a simple questionnaire and provide that user with various forms of analysis that can contribute to the formation of that individual’s policy preferences, party affiliation, and voting behavior.
Alberto Cottica, an Italian expert on web-based political participation, argues here that openly publishing government data helps solidify the relationship between public institutions and citizens.
Events:
Speakers at a February 19th webinar on public information disclosures, pressed for a set of clear standards regarding proactive information disclosure by public institutions. The webinar was sponsored by the Open Government Partnership and the World Bank Institute.
Open Data Day, a public gathering that encourages collaboration, innovation, and interaction between citizens, techies, and people interested in open data, is being held this Saturday, February 23rd. Public events are being held all over the world – view their wiki to get involved.
Recent blog posts:
Participation in parliament (Feb 19)
Funding opportunity: Knight Foundation News Challenge on open government (Feb 15)
Facilitating constructive citizen-MP online engagement: The supply side (Feb 15)
Facilitating constructive citizen-MP online engagement: The demand side (Feb 11)
Thanks to NDI project assistant Greg Brown for his assistance with this update.