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]).