8 Sessions You Shouldn’t Miss at the Summit: Open Parliaments Come to OGP!
On behalf of the Open Government Partnership (OGP)’s Legislative Openness Working Group, we are excited to share further information about the legislative openness events taking place at the OGP Global Summit next week in Mexico City.
For open government initiatives to be sustained over the long-term, they require support from across the political spectrum, so that interest in open government doesn’t fluctuate when administrations change. Open government also requires legislative support to achieve legal reforms and allocate budgetary resources to implement open government initiatives.
As announced previously, this year’s Summit will include a track dedicated to legislative openness, a first for OGP. Nearly a dozen speakers of parliaments or deputy speakers from different countries have confirmed their attendance, and we expect to welcome MPs from more than 25 countries to the event. We welcome all participants to join us at legislative openness sessions to collaborate with all of the legislators in attendance.
Headlining the legislative track will be a session at the Summit’s main stage on October 28 at 4:00 PM entitled, “Engaging Legislatures More Deeply in OGP: Recent Developments.” [1] The panel will be hosted by Senator Roberto Gil Zuarth, President of the Senate of Mexico, and will include the chairs of the Legislative Openness Working Group—Senator Hernán Larraín from Chile and Ken Wollack, president of NDI—as well as Deputy Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, who represents South Africa as co-chair of the OGP Steering Committee. Additional guests at the main stage session will include Hon. Roger Nkodo Dang, president of the Pan African Parliament, Hon. Gordana Comic, deputy speaker of the National Assembly of Serbia, Haydeé Perez, executive director of Fundar, and Vukosava Crnjanski, founder of CRTA.
In the past two years, the Legislative Openness Working Group has worked with partners in the majority of OGP member countries to help the Partnership better include the legislative branch. We have made incredible progress, seeing legislative action plans developed in countries like Chile, France, and Georgia, and strong legislative commitments included in government action plans like in Ghana. Additional legislatures, including Serbia, Mexico and Costa Rica, have created or are currently creating partnerships with civil society to pursue reform agendas. At the Summit, please join us for a session organized by UNDP on creating legislative action plans, with examples from four of these countries. [2]
When Chile was welcomed to the OGP Steering Committee last month, they decided to be represented by both executive and legislative branch officials—the first chance for an MP to be included on the OGP Steering Committee. This offers us an important opportunity to find ways to further include the legislative branch in the broader open government conversation led by OGP. The discussion on legislative engagement in OGP will continue with a session on Strengthening Civil Society and Parliamentary Networks to Open Parliaments. [3] The past two years have seen a number of networks formed among CSOs in different regions, and their collective advocacy, often together with parliamentary champions, is changing the landscape of open government reform. Come see why, and also join a discussion about how we can learn from these experiences, and how they inform a more formal integration of legislatures into the OGP structure.
Building on the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness, the Legislative Openness Working Group has developed a set of Common Ethical Principles for MPs, which will be launched at the Summit. [4] The Common Principles were recently endorsed by the the Global Organization for Parliamentarians Against Corruption. Latin America has been at the forefront on issues of legislative openness, and has recently seen the creation of a parliamentary network on these issues, the Red de Parlamento Abierto, supported by ParlAmericas. Organized in cooperation with OAS and ParlAmericas, join us for a session on regional efforts to advance parliamentary openness in the Americas, with MPs from six countries sharing the stage to discuss regional developments. [5] On the afternoon of Civil Society Day, October 27, Fundar and Transparencia Mexicana have helped to organized three different events on legislative openness, including the launch of a new book entitled, “Open ParliamentEnsuring access to legislative information and creating mechanisms for public participation are critical to building an open, trusting relationship with citizens. Technical specifications: Commitments....” [6,7,8]
You can view a full schedule of legislative openness sessions on the official Summit agenda at: http://www.ogpsummit.org. All sessions are intended to be interactive and inclusive and we hope that many of you will be able to attend and participate.
Please join us as we carry forward this conversation at the Global Summit and beyond. If you don’t get a chance to voice your opinion in these sessions, please get in touch with the Working Group directly and follow our website for updates.
See you in Mexico City!
This article was originally posted on OpeningParliament.org