This post originally appeared on NDI’s DemocracyWorks blog.

The Third International Open Data Conference in Ottawa last week brought together more than 1,000 open data advocates from a diverse array of countries and professional backgrounds to discuss open government and open data. Compared with the First International Open Data Conference – a small gathering of technologists at the World Bank in 2010 – the event’s growth constituted a clear statement that open data is here to stay and the global community of advocates is growing.

The conference demonstrated that the global open data movement has matured and is more focused on the relationship between open data, power and politics. Open data is most transformative and impactful when it improves the relationship between government and the public. Consider legislatures: when used appropriately, open data makes it easier for citizens to access information about the activities of their lawmakers, which helps build public trust and citizen engagement in government. Open legislative data can also empower citizens to effectively monitor and evaluate the performance of their legislature. Unequal access to public information can distort the relationship between citizens and their government; open data can help correct this, empowering broader participation and increasing accountability and understanding.

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News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Guatemala, Congreso Transparente is promoting an online campaign to press the Congress to adopt a Manual on Legislative Transparency, which is based on the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

In Chile, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, Fundación Pro Acceso, and Chile Transparente released an open letter raising concerns about a bill before Congress that would  amend the Chilean FOI law. In light of the current scandal, Sunlight Foundation and other regional PMOs also released a statement calling on the government to reform political finance regulations and the relationship between the public and private sectors.

Also in Chile, Fundacion Ciudadano Inteligente released a study reviewing Chilean president Michelle Bachelet’s first year in office. The results showed that after one year in office she has introduced 41.8% of the laws promised during her campaign.   

In Morocco, Sim Sim Participation Citoyenne launched a new tool on its Nouabook.ma website that allows citizens to ask questions and get answers from their MPs using video. In particular, the new feature will help illiterate citizens interact directly with their MPs.    

In Uganda, Parliament Watch held a tweet chat with young MPs to discuss youth representation and how to make legislation more relevant to young people. Participants highlighted the importance of social media in bringing discussions about governance to the citizens and improving communication between youth and their representatives.

In Colombia, Transparencia por Colombia released results for the fourth national survey on anti-bribery practices in the private sector as well as an assessment that considers the transparency of sub-national government agencies.   

In Ecuador, Observatorio Legislativo presented a report analyzing the performance of  Ecuador’s National Assembly over the last two years. The report reviews laws discussed, MPs’ individual performance, government oversight, and institutional transparency.   

In the UK, following recent elections, MySociety has updated WriteToThem.com to allow citizens to contact newly elected MPs.

In Georgia, Transparency International Georgia won a freedom of information case against Georgia’s Ministry of Interior. This court decision sets a precedent that would make it more difficult government agencies to refuse information requests based on personal data protection claims. The organization also released its annual report.

In Cambodia, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections released an educational video to raise awareness about electoral reform, specifically looking at reforms that will improve elections in the country.

In Mexico, Borde Politico, in association with Harvard University and New York University, released an infographic that summarizes the results of a study which tracked the use of funds earmarked for infrastructure by municipal governments. The study reviewed audits from Mexico’s Supreme Audit Institution to identify how much money municipal governments had to invest in infrastructure and to find out what proportion of those funds was used to develop infrastructure projects that meet the needs of the poor.

In Spain, Fundacion Civio, in association with el  El Confidencial, Tecnilógica, Iron Hack, and CartoDB, hosted a hackathon exploring new ways to use, create, and share electoral information.  

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News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Montenegro, the Center for Democratic Transitions (CDT) was selected as one of the four winners of the UNDP competition “Technology for Citizen Engagement.” The award provides small grants to support ideas for using technology to expand opportunities for citizen engagement. CDT’s  winning idea was Ask for Data, a tool that will allow citizens to easily request information from public institutions.

In Kenya, Muslims for Human Rights released a video raising awareness about the right to know how MPs are spending constituency development funds. The constituency development fund, which is intended to support development projects in MPs’ constituencies, lacks meaningful oversight.

In Greece, Vouliwatch recently released its first annual report, highlighting the role of digital technology in allowing citizens to follow parliamentary issues, ask questions to MPs, and to share ideas and proposals. The organization also announced that it will begin to provide information about the activities, discussions, and decisions of the European Parliament related to Greece and other key policy issues.

In Pakistan, Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) released two scorecards measuring the quality of governance at the federal and provincial levels of government.   

In Chile, Chile Transparente released a report on the transparency of political parties. The report concludes that although there was overall improvement compared to previous years, political parties still have weak programmatic and financial transparency.

In Georgia, Jumpstart Georgia’s Gender Pay Game was selected as a finalist for the Data Journalism Awards 2015. Winners will be announced during the Data Journalism Awards Ceremony at the General Editors Network Summit in Barcelona on June 18.

In Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, and Nigeria, Open Knowledge and Code for Africa announced the 2015 cohort of Open Government Fellows. The new fellows will promote increased government transparency and improved dialogue between citizens and governments.

In Europe, more than 100 groups issued a letter to urge the European Commission to make the lobby register legally binding. The letter also calls on the Commission to ban meetings with unregistered lobbyists and to allocate appropriate resources for monitoring and enforcement of this rule.

In Kuwait, Kuwait Transparency Society celebrated its 10th Anniversary.

In Mexico, the Senate, in cooperation with the National Democratic Institute, hosted a three day workshop on Promoting Legislative Transparency. The training covered several tools and methodologies to improve civil society’s capacity to use data to monitor parliamentary activities.  

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Overview

Inlate 2014, Samara released an updated to the Member of Parliament Website Project, first conducted in 2013. This project seeks to better understand how MPs use their websites and the extent to which MPs take advantage of the opportunity the Internet provides to better connect with their constituents. The initial 2013 MP Website Project was profiled as Case Study #9.

The project analyzes websites for the ways a constituent can contact an MP, the work an MP does, and the ways MPs involve Canadians in the political process. The results are published in an easy-to-read infographic. In addition to the 14 criteria searched for in 2013, two new criteria were added – a privacy policy for information shared with an MP and some form of an expense report.

Data Collection

Data collection in 2014 mirrored 2013 practices. Between May and July 2014, Samara volunteers visited 299 Canadian MPs’ websites to see how many sites included criteria from the new 16-point checklist. We excluded the four party leaders from our analysis as well as five vacant ridings (by-elections pending at time of data collection).

Volunteers were trained and guided by Samara staff at Samara’s offices. Websites were coded in French where MPs’ language preference was French. MP websites were located either through a search engine or through information on www.parl.gc.ca.

Similar to 2013, the analysis focused on the content of MPs’ websites and did not take into account how visually appealing websites were, or how easy they were to navigate;  Samara simply looked for evidence that the checklist criteria were present or not present. This reduced room for subjectivity on the part of the data collectors. To ensure accuracy, Samara staff double-checked 30 MP websites (10 percent of the sample) selected randomly.

All percentages reported were rounded to the nearest whole number. To receive a point for social media, the MP had to have at least two of: Facebook, Twitter, photo sharing (e.g. Flickr), or video sharing (e.g. Youtube). More information on Samara’s methodology is available here.

 As with any study, there are limitations to the design and data collected. While websites are a key communication tool for MPs, websites do not necessarily capture all of their online activity. For example, though we looked for links to social media accounts on MP websites, we did not evaluate how often or how well MPs were using these other platforms.

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This will be the last Newsbrief of 2014. See you in 2015! 

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In India, PRS Legislative Research held its 7th annual Conference on Effective Legislatures, which featured several lectures exploring the ways in which the parliament can more effectively fulfill its mandate. In preparation for the conference, which took place on December 9, PRS Legislative Research drafted three discussion papers on Parliament’s Role in Financial Oversight, Parliament as a Law Making Body, and Parliamentary Oversight of the Executive.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala published a report on the development of rules of procedure in the National Constituent Assembly. The report also includes the organization’s recommendations for changes to the rules of procedure that would strengthen the Assembly and make it more transparent.  

In Croatia, noting increasing public distrust of politicians and members of parliament, GONG has released recommendations to improve the management of conflicts of interest and strengthen public integrity systems.

In Kenya, Mzalendo launched the People’s Shujaaz Awards to recognize members of parliament in the National Assembly and Senate that have served as champions of the public interest.

In Malaysia, Sinar Project launched BillWatcher, making it easier to find, search for, and discuss pieces of legislation introduced in the Malaysian parliament.

In Australia, OpenAustralia.org – a website built and managed by the Open Australia Foundation – now includes searchable data on how members of parliament vote.

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As always, please feel free to send updates through the OpeningParliament.org contact page for inclusion in the News Brief.

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

Globally, the OGP’s Legislative Openness Working Group organized GLOW, or Global Legislative Openness Week. GLOW consisted of events and activities focused on transparent, participatory legislative processes organized by members of the parliamentary openness community in 30 countries. Further details about event outcomes can be found on the blog.

The voting period for Making All Voices Count’s Global Innovation Competition began October 22 and concludes November 23. The competition includes 241 ideas, many of which were submitted by members of the OP community. The public is encouraged to review these ideas and vote for those they believe will most effectively empower citizens and secure more accountable, open governance in the program’s 12 key countries.

In Latin America, the LALT Network released their 2014 Index of Legislative Transparency, with detailed analysis on the congresses of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Perú, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

In Mexico, the Open Parliament Alliance launched as a collaboration between Congress, the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (IFAI), and a coalition of civil society groups with the purpose of ensuring that Mexico’s 32 state legislatures and national congress comply with principles of parliamentary openness.

Mexico also hosted AbreLatam and Con Datos, two important events organized around open government, legislative transparency, and citizen participation. A short Spanish language summary of the conversations that took place at these events can be found here.

In Portugal, the parliament passed a resolution supporting the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness with near identical language to the Declaration itself. The resolution progressed through the entire legislative process, from committee to plenary, before ultimately being passed on July 10.

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In India, national elections closed on May 16, with Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party anticipated to win more than the 272 seats required for a parliamentary majority. In advance of the election, Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) developed report cards for members of the Lok Sabha. The report cards provide citizens with information gathered through the Right To Information Act and other government websites and assess MP performance on factors like attendance and efforts to introduce new development within their districts. See here for more information on SNS’ methodology.

Last month, PRS Legislative Research provided a historical comparison of the number of bills passed to ordinances declared during each Lok Sabha since 1952.

In Chile, delegates from 27 countries gathered in Santiago on April 29-30 for the first Poplus Conference, organized by mySociety and Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente. Participants shared goals for the future of the Poplus network, a nascent project with the goal to create and share open source code that helps civic organizations around the world.

In the European Union, voting for European Parliamentary elections will take place May 22-25. Election results will be available in open data format, allowing interested users to retrieve raw data, use filters to present the information in custom ways, and publish it on their own online platforms.

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Kohovolit.eu launched an election calculator for the European Parliament that allows users to browse voting data of European MPs from 2009 to 2014. The calculator allows users to curate the data by selecting issues important to them and reviewing how closely the voting records of different EMPs match their views.

Click here to read more.