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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As in previous years, Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) showcased the fantastic work being done around the world to realize the principles of open parliament. Organized by members of the Open Government Partnership's Legislative Openness Working Group, GLOW featured more than 20 events and activities organized by parliaments and civil society organizations in over 15 countries around the world. This year included a diverse range of activities, such as public events and private meetings, campaigns and advocacy, and hackathons and the development of new digital tools. The diversity of approaches and actors that made Global Legislative Openness Week a success also demonstrates that the global movement for open, responsive legislatures is broad, deep, and growing.

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On the occasion of both Global Legislative Openness Week and International Day of Democracy, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the Open Parliament initiative are proud to announce the second Parliament Week, 7-13 November 2016, with the slogan “You Have the Floor”.

Parliament Week is a series of events aimed at fostering ties between the citizens of Serbia and the National Assembly and teaching about the parliament’s work. The various events provide a forum for debate on the involvement of citizens in the democratic process, importance of openness of the parliament as an institution, and different channels of communication between the citizens and their elected representatives.

“Parliament Week highlights the importance of the parliament as an institution by promoting parliamentary democracy, transparency and opening new communication channels between the citizens and the parliament. This project contributes to the citizens’ awareness of the importance and work of the National Assembly and encourages them to take part because the parliament belongs to all of us equally”, said Maja Gojkovic, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

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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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Last month, the Open Government Partnership (OGP)’s Legislative Openness Working Group issued an open call to parliaments and civil society organizations around the world: show support for open lawmaking, and help advance the cause. Thanks to “an incredibly strong network of national advocates,” the response to the first-ever Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) was tremendous, with 45 activities organized in 33 countries. See images, videos and stories from the week at openparl2014.org.

Clockwise from top: Brazil’s GLOW Hack Weekend; the OGP Legislative Openness Working Group’s global meeting in Chile; Mexico’s Open Parliament Alliance logo; and Open Australia’s Hackfest: GLOW Edition (photo by Lisa Cross Photography)

The GLOW campaign was anchored by two international OGP Working Group meetings aimed at expanding civic engagement and institutionalizing the open parliament agenda — in other words, making sure that citizens can actively participate in decisions that affect them, and making sure that the Open Government Partnership has reform mechanisms and resources that are for and by legislatures. In between these two meetings (a regional meeting hosted by the Parliament of Montenegro and a global meeting held by the Congress of Chile, a co-anchor of the OGP Working Group) a number of independent GLOW events brought legislators and civil society organizations together to discuss opening parliamentary processes and information — particularly open data.

Here are just some of the GLOW activities held between Sept. 15 and 25:

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Germany, the Open Knowledge Festival took place in Berlin from July 15-17. A good summary of the event can be viewed here. Members of the OpeningParliament.org community that attended include Foundation ePaństwo, DATA Uruguay, Sunlight Foundation, Fundar, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, KohoVolit, K-Monitor, Holder de Ord, Hvem Stemmer Hvad, Open Ministry, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, Open State Foundation, Open North, OpenKratio, Hasadna, mySociety, and Access Info.

Elsewhere, Parliament Watch recently announced an online survey that documents the positions of Germany’s 96 MEPs on important policy issues. In addition to the survey, the organization also collected voting behavior of the elected officials during the last parliamentary term.

In Greece, the Ministry of Administrative Reform and E-Government submitted the country’s Action Plan to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The plan contains ambitious commitments on parliamentary openness and legislative transparency, including the introduction of a system for tracking bill changes, improvements in the usability and functionality of the parliament’s website, provision of historical parliamentary documents, and enhancements of social media policy.

In Ireland, the government launched data.gov.ie, an open data portal that currently supports 419 datasets. The Minister of Public Education and Reform announced the end of application fees for FOI requests. And the government approved the country’s Action Plan for OGP which includes several components to increase citizen participation during the pre-legislative process through consultation with committees and scrutiny of draft bills.

In France, Regards Citoyens initiated a crowdsourcing project that converted declarations of interests for all 925 MPs into open data. The declarations were previously scanned into PDFs by the High Authority on Transparency in Public Life (HATVP). The conversion of these files to open data brings the declarations into line with standards established in October 2013 by France’s law on the transparency of public life.

In Italy, OpenPolis and others have been drawing attention to the country’s need for an FOI law with the #FOIA4Italy campaign. Despite the growing momentum around FOI in recent years, there has been a lack of progress on the issue in parliament. FOIA4Italy plans to submit an FOIA bill based on legislation in countries with advanced access to information laws after crowdsourcing improvements from the Italian public.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala unveiled a new project, Marsad Baladia, a platform that will monitor the activities of municipalities to generate greater citizen awareness before municipal elections scheduled for 2015. The project has already created a transparency index from the 24 municipalities it has so far observed.

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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.

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