[open-government] Launch of the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness

[Dan Swislow]

Friends,

Sorry for cross-posting -- I'm sure many of you have heard about this
elsewhere already. But please feel free to send to other lists as well!

I am pleased to announce, in partnership with the Sunlight
Foundation<http://www.sunlightfoundation.com>and Latin
American Network for Legislative
Transparency<http://www.transparencialegislativa.org/eng/nosotros.asp>,
the upcoming launch of the Declaration on Parliamentary
Openness<http://www.openingparliament.org/declaration> -- now
available on OpeningParliament.org <http://openingparliament.org/> -- a
call on the world's parliaments for greater openness, transparency and
citizen participation. The declaration was developed with the support and
input of more than 80 civil society parliamentary monitoring organizations
(PMOs) from more than 55 countries around the
world<http://www.openingparliament.org/organizations>,
a number which continues to grow. It is currently available in seven
languages, and is being translated into at least six more.

While already available online, the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness
will be officially launched on the International Day of Democracy,
September 15, at the World e-Parliament Conference
2012<http://www.ictparliament.org/WePC2012> in
Rome, a meeting of more than 400 parliamentarians and parliamentary staff. The
event will be streamed online at this
link<http://webtv.camera.it/portal/portal/default/default>.
It will also be on the agenda of the Open Knowledge
Foundation<http://www.okfestival.org/> in
Helsinki from September 17-22. The declaration contains 44 provisions that
draw on standards frameworks developed by the global parliamentary
community, covering basic principles of public ownership of parliamentary
information, specifying categories of that information, and detailing the
channels through which it is made accessible to citizens. It also contains
a section on technology and "open data" issues, recognizing the increasing
importance of information and communication technologies (ICT). It is
envisioned for use as an advocacy tool for PMOs around the world to lobby
for greater openness and parliamentary reform, as well as potentially as a
tool to assess parliamentary transparency worldwide.

Please feel free to contact me if you'd like more information or would like
to join this effort as a "supporting organization." You can follow the
Twitter hashtag #OpenParl <https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/openparl> for
further developments.

You can also view this recent blog post on the declaration at the Open
Knowledge Foundation's
blog<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/08/31/introducing-the-declaration-on-parliamentary-openness/>,
and another article on the effort that appeared in
TechPresident<http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/22813/opening-worlds-legislative-bodies-global-game>last
week.

All the best,
Dan

-- 
*Dan Swislow*
Program Assistant, Governance

National Democratic Institute
455 Massachusetts Ave NW 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
Tel: 202.728.5620
Skype: dan.swislow

 <http://goog_1117818244>Opening*Parliament*.org<http://www.openingparliament.org>
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