This post originally appeared on DemWorks.org and was written by Christian Benito. 

On November 30 in Constitution Hall of the Honorable Congress of the Republic of Colombia, an important event took place for the country’s democracy, particularly its legislative institutions. Leaders from the Senate and Chamber of Representatives came together to publicly present the first Open Parliament Action Plan of the Colombian Congress, which lays a series of benchmarks toward making the congress more visible and accessible to citizens.

Representatives attended from the President’s Transparency Secretariat, parliamentary monitoring organizations such as Visible Congress, Transparency for Colombia and the Institute of Political Science (all member organizations of the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency and the OpeningParliament.org network of parliamentary monitoring organizations), congressional offices, media outlets and special guests from the Chilean and Paraguayan legislatures.

This demonstration of political will by the Congress to make the institution more open, modern and transparent through the Action Plan is part of a process that began last year. In November 2015, the Senate and Chamber of Representatives signed a Declaration of Commitments for Transparency. One of the agreed upon provisions within the Declaration was the development of the Action Plan.

Since November 2015, the Colombian Congress has undertaken important efforts to fulfill its commitment to engaging in a two-way dialogue with citizens from all parts of the country. This effort has not been taken solely by legislators or congressional leaders or staff. As part of making legislative affairs more transparent, a process now formalized in the Action Plan, Congress facilitated a collaborative development process with different members of civil society organizations and the legislature. Together, they helped structure and flesh out the points of the plan, some taken from the OGP, to promote integrity, accountability, citizen political participation and the use of information and communication technologies in government.

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Since its launch in 2011, many have urged the Open Government Partnership (OGP) to expand beyond narrow definitions of the term “government.” Legislators, mayors, and others argued that OGP’s transformational potential was tied in part to its ability to accommodate different branches and levels of government – not only the executive, as is the case in many member countries. A truly open government includes an accountable executive branch, trusted legislatures, and responsive governance at all levels. This was an ambitious vision, but many argued that OGP’s ability to deliver better democracy and better governance was tied to its continued growth and expansion. 

The OGP Summit in Paris, which took place last month and convened hundreds of open government champions and activists from around the world, clearly indicated that OGP is beginning to deliver on this ambitious agenda. This is particularly true with respect to parliaments, which are now an integral component of OGP in many member countries and are helping deliver real reforms at the country level. While the OGP Summit demonstrated that parliamentary openness is a mainstream issue in the OGP community, 2017 provides an opportunity to deliver even more meaningful legislative openness reforms.

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Este post fue escrito por la Red Latinoamericana de Transparencia Legislativa.

Latinoamérica muestra un escenario diverso en materia de transparencia legislativa. El promedio de los 13 países evaluados por la tercera edición del Ínidce Latinoamericano de Transparencia Legislativa nos arroja un resultado de 50%, es decir, nos encontramos a mitad de camino. Los países que se ubicaron en los mejores puestos fueron Costa Rica con un 72%, Chile con el 64% y Paraguay con el 62%, mientras que Argentina (39%), República Dominicana (37%) y Venezuela (21%) se ubican en los últimos lugares.

Los estándares que el Índice evalúa fueron consensuados por las distintas organizaciones de la Red Latinoamericana por la Transparencia Legislativa y representan un nivel que consideramos exigible para todos los congresos de la Región. Avanzar en dichos estándares tiene por objetivo fortalecer a los Congresos como el espacio de deliberación democrática por excelencia a través de la apertura del proceso legislativo para efectos de aumentar los niveles de legitimidad del mismo y de sus resultados. Nos imaginamos a los congresos como el espacio donde la ciudadanía y representantes tienen la oportunidad de debatir y tomar acuerdos de forma informada, dictando normas que sean representativas de la voluntad ciudadana respecto de los principales asuntos públicos que ocupan a los países.

Son múltiples las amenazas a la democracia en nuestro continente: el hiperpresidencialismo, la demagogia, la concentración de riqueza y poder e incluso los gobiernos de facto, entre otros. Entendemos que legitimar el proceso de deliberación en los congresos es fortalecer la política democrática. Reconocer como espacios de decisión aquellos que son representativos de la diversidad que habita en nuestros países por sobre el poder concentrado en figuras o grupos específicos. La opacidad y falta de control sobre los congresos y sus miembros son elementos que han mostrado ser dañinos para la legitimidad de los mismos, con esta investigación buscamos dar luces sobre los aspectos en los que es necesario avanzar para revertir dicha situación.

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News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Argentina, CIPPEC, with support of a public TV channel, organized a series of dialogues between young voters and five candidates running to become Mayor of Buenos Aires. To increase reach, each dialogue was broadcast using Google Hangouts and provided opportunities for interaction over social networks.

In Germany, Parliament Watch won a lawsuit calling on the parliament to disclose information on lobbyists who have registered with the Bundestag.

In Uganda, Parliament Watch released a report entitled “Assessment of the Accountability Committees of Parliament”. The assessment found that accountability committees struggle to review and respond to Auditor General reports in a timely manner, creating a large backlog of reports. The assessment concludes with a number of institutional, administrative, and political recommendations to help accountability committees deal with these challenges.

In Croatia, GONG and Code for Croatia launched a new website that allows citizens to request information from more than 6000 public authorities, including the Croatian Parliament.

In Norway, Holder de Ord launched Sagt i Salen (Said in the Parliament), a new feature that shows how many times a certain word has been used in parliamentary debate. This tool facilitates political speech analysis by showing how many times a word has been used in a given year, by a political party, or by an individual MP.   

In Ghana, the Center for Democratic Development began to implement a project called “Building Transparency, Participation and Feedback around Local Government Budgeting and Planning Systems.” The project aims to promote change in “attitudes and behaviors of both the Assembly staff and the citizenry for improved transparency and accountability in the management of local revenue.”

In Georgia, Transparency International released a policy brief calling for the creation of a verification system that would review public officials’ asset declarations. Evidence gathered by TI suggests that a verification system would help ensure that public officials’ asset declarations are complete and accurate. TI also released and assessment of Georgia’s national integrity system.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala issued a press release with recommendations for improving the draft right to information bill that is currently being considered by the parliament.

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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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This post was written by Meron Menwyelet and originally appeared on the NDItech blog. 

Since 2000, NDI has worked with a broad range of political parties in Colombia to develop effective communication strategies that leverage new technologies to improve congressional-constituent relations. The recent launch of the Ciudadanía y Congresistas (Citizen and Legislators) platform is the latest example of such a project, which leveraged our Issues DemTool to strengthen the relationship between citizens and their members of congress.

As a refresher, the Issues DemTool is one of four, open source, online platforms that makes up the Democracy Toolkit, a suite of tools launched by our team last August to address the most common challenges faced by NDI partners: organizing contacts, connecting government with constituents, managing election data, and fostering civic debate. Each DemTool was designed to be easy-to-use and inexpensively deployed to support civic activists, political party officials, election observers, candidates for elected office, and members of parliament worldwide.

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Latin American legislatures have significant work to do to meet international standards on openness and transparency.  This is evident from the latest findings of the Latin American Index for Legislative Transparency, unveiled between 15-25 September during Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The average country score was below 40 percent. While Peru (55%) and Chile (53%) lead the index, Argentina (36%) ranks in seventh place, followed by Bolivia (24%) and Venezuela (21%).

What does the Index measure?

The Index comprises four dimensions: (i) Legal regulations; (ii) Parliamentary work; (iii) Budget and Administrative Management; and (iv) Mechanisms for Participation, Public Engagement and Accountability.

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