News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Chile, Chile Transparente celebrated the passing of new legislation to create a public register of lobbyists and lobbying. Previously, Chile Transparente marked the new year with articles looking at the accomplishments of the transparency movement worldwide, and commented on the specific challenges facing Chile that lay ahead.

Poplus, the network founded by mySociety and Ciudadano Inteligente, launched a new platform called SayIt. SayIt makes it easier to launch websites to track and publish politicians’ speeches, interviews, and the proceedings of trials.

In Azerbaijan, the International Human Rights Protection Association condemned the arrest of Anar Mammadli, Chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS), on charges of tax evasion and abuse of office as baseless, illegal, and suspect, given EMDS’ reports of abuse during the October Presidential Election. You can find the final report of OSCE’s election observation mission on Azerbaijan’s Presidential Election on the EMDS website. A timeline is available here.

In the United States, the Sunlight Foundation announced a new initiative to increase political finance transparency, including a free webinar series. Sunlight also launched a new version of the Congress app, incorporating legislative district maps with Mapbox technology. The Economist published a neat data visualization on polarization in American politics, drawing on Govtrack.us data.

Click here to read more.

(This news update, by Dustin Palmer, is a continuation of that posted last week. Be sure to check back next week for news from this week (which isn’t covered in the update below… got it?))

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Pakistan, during a citizens forum hosted by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), the Speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab praised the role of PILDAT in improving the performance of the Punjab Assembly. The forum marked the release of a report by PILDAT on the performance of the provincial assembly over the last five years, including recommendations to further strengthen it.  The report is available in English and Urdu.

In Colombia, Congreso Visible released its yearly report on the legislature, examined the inadequate division of labor in the Congress, and considered the challenge of making legislative information visible. Additionally, Transparencia Por Colombia helped citizens to create a mural of transparency during a public meeting with the local planning council of the Bosa district of Bogotá. Citizens and local authorities renewed the Bosa Pact for Transparency and Governance. Transparencia Por Colombia also presented at the Andesco National Congress.

In Mexico, the LALT Network recently called on the international community to oppose efforts by the Mexico House of Representatives to restrict access to information and transparency. More context on these efforts - and the opposition’s response - is available from FUNDAR here and here. One factor is the lack of historical legislative data and research, which hampers the legislative process. Also in Mexico, Visión Legislativa urged legislators to to make more legislative information available, even as the Supreme Court ruled against disclosure requirements.

Click here to read more.