This update was compiled by my colleague Dustin Palmer, who will be taking over the regular duties of putting this post together.
News from the parliamentary monitoring community:
In Bangladesh, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) expressed optimism at the opposition party’s decision to join the upcoming budget session of parliament.
In Belgium, the software division of Gov2U was acquired by Scytl, a company focused on election modernization efforts. Also in Belgium, the Open Knowledge Foundation of Belgium took over stewardship of the OpenBelgium website.
In Egypt, the Egyptian Democracy Institute (EDI) released a report on the April 2013 activities of the Shura Council (or Upper House).
In India, a brief profile of the president of PRS Legislative Research was published, amid other news coverage of the country’s parliamentary stalemate.
In Kenya, the PMO Mzalendo published an article detailing the possibly illegal actions of the police during the recent “Occupy Parliament” protest.
In Malaysia, the Sinar Project posted an internship opening in Subang Jaya.
In Mexico, Visión Legislativa criticized the Mexico City’s efforts towards transparency after a significant raise in the cost of the 2012 tax code.
In Montenegro, the Center for Democratic Transitions (CDT) participated in a workshop on supporting policy proposals, including design research.
In Paraguay, Seeds for Democracy (Semillas para la Democracia) highlighted a recent report by Mirador Electoral on campaign expenditures and transparency.
In Russia, the director of Informational Culture discussed the importance of open data in the Russian context.
In Tunisia, Al Bawsala called on three members of the Constituent Assembly who also serve as government ministers to resign. Al Bawsala recently re-launched their website.
In the UK, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) held a study group meeting on how to improve parliamentary performance in a tech-enabled world. Recommendations from the meeting included the need for further collaboration between parliaments, the CPA, and PMOs.
In Zimbabwe, the Parliamentary Monitoring Trust released its most recent newsletter, which includes tips on using social media to monitor parliaments. The group also posts recent votes and proceedings of the Zimbabwe House Assembly, as seen in this example from May 7th, 2013.
Other related news:
In Africa, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) adopted legislation on access to information as a guide to African legislators. It is intended to be a model law that legislators may tailor to their nation’s needs as they pursue open information objectives.
In Australia, the Attorney General announced that Australia will join the Open Government Partnership. This commitment follows the establishment of government open data website and the 2010 Declaration of Open Government. Earlier, the government faced criticisms for a lack of transparency when blocking websites from the public domain. Ireland also announced that it will be joining OGP, while Russia pulled its membership.
In the UK, the Data Strategy Board released a study on government information policy, including ways to monetize open data. The Open Rights Group criticized the report’s lack of provisions for transparency and citizen privacy. Meanwhile, Involve.org.uk detailed the importance of public participation in the open government movement.
In the US, President Obama released a wide-ranging executive order to all executive departments and agencies on his new open data policy. Concerns about transparency and the “mosaic effect” were raised by some commentators.
Martin Tisne of the Omidyar Network discusses the importance of making government data available.
Resources:
Opensource.com detailed a new initiative by the World Wide Web Foundation to generate consensus regarding an Open Data Directory. An outline and comments are available in the Google Doc here. A somewhat similar resource - the open data census - is available online from the Open Knowledge Foundation.
The open-source political- and social connection mapping platform Poderopedia (Chile) debuted new features that allow content and code to be contributed more easily by users, as well as an API. The release comes alongside a new effort to make the code and platform available and adaptable for use in other countries.
Presentation slides on “Citizen Engagement in Lawmaking: Making it Meaningful” from Andrew Mandelbaum of the National Democratic Institute are available here. Mr. Mandelbaum presented on this topic during a webinar with Cristiano Ferri Faria, of the E-democracia initiative in Brazil. A recording is available here.
A new release of Nomenklatura, a data parsing service is now available. In the past, this resource has been used to sort through names in projects related to German parliamentarians, UK government agencies, and EU lobbying, among others.
A list of abstracts and papers from the recent Open Data on the Web conference is available here. Topics included public financing, corruption, and the life-cycle of government data among many others.
The Revenue Watch Institute released its 2013 Resource Governance Index, finding that more than half of countries surveyed do not meet basic governance standards concerning natural resources. The report includes a number of reform suggestions.
The Pew Research Center released its “Civic Engagement in the Digital Age” report. E-democracy.org considered some implications of the report.
Open data pioneer Jose M. Alonso discusses changing the culture of data sharing in a two part interview available here and here.
Datablog’s data journalism workflow chart is now available in English, Spanish, Japanese, and German.
The Sunlight Foundation highlights a 2010 paper exploring asset disclosure by politicians and better government outcomes.
Harvard University professor of public policy Archon Fung released a new paper on the democratic power of transparency.
Events:
May 27: In collaboration with La Fundación Ciudadana Civio, the BBVA Innovation Center will host and stream a workshop on data journalism.
May 29: The Media Lab at MIT University will host a talk with Beth Novek, founder and director of the Governance Lab. A webcast will be available here.
May 29-30: The Open Government Partnership’s Africa Regional Meeting will take place in Mombasa, Kenya.
June 6-7: The Personal Democracy Forum will take place in New York City on the theme “Think Bigger.” A number of speakers come from the open government community.
June 26-27: The Latin America and Caribbean regional conference on open data will take place in Montevideo, Uruguay. An “unconference” will take place in the two days preceding the conference.
July 10-13: In Spain, the University of Zaragoza will offer a short course on data and open government.
Recent Blog Posts:
Merging voting records with non-parliamentary datasets: An example from the Czech Republic (May 17)
MP-PMO Study Group to recommend democratic reforms for parliaments (May 6)