Critical Role of ICT in Parliament

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(No Transcript)
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Critical Role of ICT in Parliament
ICT is a vital tool for enabling parliaments to

• Fulfill legislative, oversight, and
  representative responsibilities
• Achieve the goals of transparency, openness,
  accessibility, accountability, and effectiveness
• Be active participants in the global information
  society

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Objectives of the Report

• Establish authoritative baseline of use of ICT in
  parliaments
• Provide opportunity for sharing lessons learned
  and good practices among parliaments
• Serve as reference source for parliaments,
  multilateral organizations, development agencies,
  donors and experts engaged in inter-parliamentary
  cooperation and in assisting legislatures to
  fulfill their constitutional duties

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e-Parliament evolving concept

• A legislature that is empowered to be more
  transparent, accessible and accountable through
  ICT
• Empowers people, in all their diversity, to be
  more engaged in public life by providing greater
  access to parliament
• Connects stakeholders through ICT to support
  law-making, representation, and oversight more
  effectively
• Fosters the development of an equitable and
  inclusive information society through the
  adoption of standards and supportive policies

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Topics covered in the report

1. Parliament, ICT and the information society
2. Vision, innovation, and leadership
3. Management, planning, and resources
4. Infrastructure and services
5. Documenting the legislative process
6. Parliamentary websites
7. Building a knowledge base for parliament
8. Parliaments and citizens enhancing the dialogue
9. Cooperation and coordination

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Sources

• Survey results from 105 assemblies
• Results of the World e-Parliament Conference 2007
  and related meetings
• Publicly available documents
• Contributions of experts

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Participation by region

• Geographical groupings
• European Union area (28 respondents from the
  European Union, including the European
  Parliament)
• Sub-Saharan Africa area (29 respondents)
• Latin America area (14 respondents)

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Primary conclusions

• Some parliaments have been very successful in
  their use of ICT to support and even enhance
  their most important activities
• However, there is a substantial gap in most
  parliaments between what is possible with ICT to
  support the values and goals of parliaments and
  what has been accomplished
• This gap is especially pronounced among
  legislatures from countries with lower income
  levels. The digital divide that exists between
  high income and low income countries is reflected
  in parliaments

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Primary conclusions (continued)

• Although many parliaments may not yet be
  employing ICT to its fullest, most have plans to
  improve their use of technology to support their
  stated values and goals
• With sufficient political will, availability of
  resources, and increased collaboration there can
  be a far more effective deployment of ICT in
  parliaments in the future

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Requirements for successful implementation

• A clear vision
• Committed leadership
• Strong management
• Effective planning and oversight
• Informed and engaged members
• Collaboration among key stakeholders
• Highly trained and knowledgeable staff
• Cooperation with other legislative bodies

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Recommendations managerial

• Engage all major stakeholders, including members
  of parliament, in establishing a vision for ICT
  in parliament based on the values and goals of
  the institution, providing a shared view of
  priorities and leading to consensus on what needs
  to be achieved
• Develop a strategic planning process that creates
  project plans, assigns management authority and
  responsibility, allocates resources, establishes
  deadlines, and ensures that implementation is
  managed effectively

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Recommendations managerial

• Promote strong management by Secretaries General
  and other senior officers of the innovation
  process to ensure that resources are allocated
  appropriately, and that ICT projects are
  sustained over time and meet their objectives
• Invest in human resources, including by providing
  training for ICT specialists, other legislative
  and research staff, and members
• Advocate collaboration at all levels, internally
  among IT specialists and major operating units,
  between chambers, at regional levels, and on a
  global basis to enable sharing of resources, good
  practices, and expertise

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Recommendations technical

• Implement a parliamentary information system that
  encompasses all bills and amendments, plenary
  debates and votes, and committee documents and
  actions
• Create an authoritative, accessible, timely, and
  engaging website that provides a complete and
  understandable view of parliamentary activities
  and documents and offers multiple formats and
  channels of access

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Recommendations technical

• Adopt open standards for all legislative
  documents to facilitate wider citizens access
  and the creation of a comprehensive legislative
  information resource that can be shared and
  integrated with other material both internally
  and externally
• Build a coherent knowledge base for parliaments
  that links all relevant internal and external
  information resources into an organized system
  that facilitates search and retrieval of needed
  information for members, staff, and the public
• Continue to explore ICT tools to engage citizens
  and civil society, perform assessments of their
  utility, and adopt those that support fruitful
  interaction between parliament and the public

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Recommendations cooperation and coordination

• Establish a global dialogue on open document
  standards among legislatures to learn from others
  and to expand interoperability among different
  legislative systems and build a global
  legislative knowledge base
• Develop common guidelines for parliamentary,
  committee, and member websites based on an update
  of the IPU Guidelines to serve the goals of
  greater and improved transparency, as well as
  providing more effective tools for access to
  parliamentary information

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Recommendations cooperation and coordination

• Share experiences in the development of the most
  widely used legislative systems that would be
  particularly helpful to those who currently lack
  the resources and expertise. In certain
  situations this could open the possibility of
  collaborative applications development
• Design common interactive capabilities for
  communicating with citizens and training
  programmes, including using e-learning tools, for
  a wide range of parliamentary staff and members

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Final thoughts

• Sometimes there is a lack of understanding of
  what can be achieved with ICT
• Innovation is a continuous challenge for all
  parliaments regardless of economic level
• Cooperation and coordination among legislative
  bodies can help greatly to level the playing
  field
• In the information age, parliaments have a unique
  opportunity to use ICT to engage citizens---in
  all their diversity--in creating an equitable,
  inclusive, and open society

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Next challenges

• World e-Parliament Conference 2008 co-organized
  by the United Nations, the European Parliament
  and the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament
  Brussels, 25 and 26 November 2008.
• Revision of the IPU Guidelines for parliamentary
  websites issued in 2000
• Assess possible convergence in open standards for
  parliamentary documentation at regional and
  global level
• Launch of the 2009 Survey and release of the
  World e-Parliament Report 2010