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Activities
The following framework of the activities of the African Parliamentary Knowledge Network (APKN) is the fist outcome of the parallels workshops held at the International Conference on the African Parliamentary Knowledge Network in Cairo, June 2008.
It is expected this very preliminary draft workplan will be discussed, updated, prioritised and eventually endorsed once the APKN Executive Committee will be in place. them as they deem appropriate and bring them into alignment with the Charter of the network that will be finalised at the Cairo's Conference.
No time frame or deadlines are included since the scope of this exercise is to determine the range of projects and related work the network may wish to undertake. For the same reason, a discussion of resources is deferred until agreement is reached on the initial activities. Resources can then be identified and plans and schedules can be formulated for subsequent approval.
Currently the “Africa i-Parliament Action Plan” Project of the UNITED NATIONS Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA) has committed to provide, for the duration of the Project, support to the “Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network” by:
- supporting the coordination and planning of the “Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network”;
- providing technical expertise to the Networks thematic areas and supporting the development of services for “knowledge-driven Parliaments”;
- sponsoring the organisation of the annual “Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network” conference;
- maintaining a knowledge repository to serve as a reference point for advisory services, e-training, best practices, etc.;
- providing proof-of-concept implementations of ICT applications which can then be deployed in the African Parliaments.
The Executive Committee will seek the support the of development partners and donors and will also seek to engage the collaboration, among others, of long established parliamentary networks like the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation (ECPRD) ecprd.secure.europarl.europa.eu and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) www.ncsl.org of the USA, but also also universities and excellence centre in Africa and elsewhere.
Legislative Process
Legislative Process
Managing effectively and openly proposed laws and their accompanying amendments is an essential requirement for modern legislatures in carrying out their law making responsibilities. Access to these documents through a process that is open serves to legitimize the authority of the parliament and provides one of the most important means of ensuring respect for the rule of law. In order to be able to benefit from the opportunities that an open and transparent legislative process can deliver, parliaments need to build certain technical and policy skills and capacities.
To increase legislative productivity it is necessary to streamline the internal drafting processes, establish legislative priorities and a legislative agenda, and allocate legislative drafting resources to effectively address the priorities and carry out the agenda. An effort should be made to make all documentation more easily available and transparent to all relevant stakeholders in parliament and outside parliament.
Following the Cairo Conference it is proposed that the APKN – Legislative Process Group articulate its capacity building activities of the first year focusing on:
- Legislative process: principles and roles - The function of legislation - Legislative drafting and the policy process - Legislative drafting and ethics - Legislative process - The role and responsibility of the legislative drafter.
- Legislative Drafting - General principles - Linguistic aspects - Structure of legislative acts - Normative references – Modifications – Amendments - Norms over time.
- Bill summaries - Explanations of a bill’s intent - Roles of the drafter and bill clerks;
- Legislative Oversight (ensuring laws are effectively implemented) - Understanding why some agencies fail to implement effectively, and understanding the legislative options that are available.
Information and Research
Information and Research
Parliamentarians must address a broad array of complex issues as they develop legislation and debate public policies. It is of strategic importance to be able to have the capacity and skills within the parliament to provide policy makers and citizens the best possible research relevant to the problems they are attempting to solve. In addition, policy makers and citizens need to learn how to apply such research results and to understand the benefits and limitations of available information sources.
Evidence-based Policy Making, i.e., public policy informed by rigorously established objective evidence can help parliaments in making better informed decisions about legislative proposals, programmes, and projects by putting the best research results at the heart of policy development. This approach stands in contrast to opinion-based policy, which relies heavily on the untested views of individuals or groups, often inspired by ideological standpoints or speculative conjecture.
Librarians and researchers need to have the expertise to access a broad array of digital resources, validate the source, and identify those that are most useful to respond to questions posed by members and other staff and to support data-driven policy formulation.
Following the Cairo Conference it is proposed that the APKN – Information and Research Group articulate its capacity building activities of the first year focusing on:
- Evidence-based Policy Making” (EbPM) - How to build scientifically-valid evidence about the effectiveness of a program, policy, or practice that is strong enough to help inform policy decisions. What are the cycles of EbPM and the different stages of studies/evidence? What types of study designs are capable of generating such evidence?
- Africa News Monitor (ANM) a news portal based on data mining technologies developed by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). The system does gather on-line news reports from news portals world wide, in different languages, analyse and classify the content of the reports, aggregate the information, issue alerts and produce intuitive visual presentations of the information found.
- Africa Parliamentary Information Exchange (APEX) - The APEX is a tool to improve exchange of information between the national parliaments and the Pan Africa Parliament, and among African parliaments themselves. National parliaments in Africa may take part, with the degree of involvement decided by each parliament. Each parliament is encouraged to inform the other parliaments of its activities concerning cross-national initiatives and the recommendations of the Pan African Parliament.
Information and Communication Technology
Information and Communication Technology
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can empower parliaments to better fulfill their democratic functions by providing MPs and parliamentary administrations with access to documents and information in order to improve their efficiency, transparency, accountability and accessibility. ICT can be used to increase the quality of parliamentary services, facilitate the work of parliamentarians, and create new ways to promote the access of citizens and civil society to the work of parliaments.
Parliaments have to deal with new challenges of promoting, regulating and safeguarding the development of an equitable information society. Parliaments are the ideal institutional forum where the positive effects of new technologies can be enabled, monitored and appraised in terms not only of economic development but also of the need to protect the citizen’s rights and the more deprived and disadvantaged sectors of society.
To benefit from the opportunities that ICT can deliver, parliaments need to build expertise to deal with, on the one hand, the managerial and technical capacities to deploy ICT effectively within the legislature and, on the other hand, the legal and regulatory issues of the information society. Although there will be an initial policy focus on issues related to the information society, it is anticipated that in the long term, other policy issues might be addressed.
Following the Cairo Conference it is proposed that the APKN – ICT Group articulate its capacity building activities of the first year focusing on:
- Online digest regarding best-practices and technical guidelines for ICTs
- ICT Governance in Parliaments
- ICT managerial and technical skills
- ICT policy briefs for MPs
Communication and Public Information
Communication and Public Information
The Parliaments are face with the challenges and also with the opportunities of ICT to share ideas and discuss how to make Parliament more relevant and closer to their citizens.
Relations with constituents, stakeholders, and public in general are become more and more important both for MPs and also for a healthy democratic process. Constituents, stakeholders, and public are should be seen as “laboratories” to determine the effectiveness of government programs and services.
Being able to communicate effectively with constituents, stakeholders, and public concerning the new of legislation and the effect of legislation on their lives but also being able to monitor the effectiveness of on going programmes and regulatory frameworks are strategic skills that MPs should master.
Citizen political engagement can be categorised in:
- first level: unidirectional communication in which MPs/Parliaments send people information, publish information and hope that they read it;
- second level: bidirectional communication, an actual exchange of information, such as when a constituent poses a question to an MP’s office and receives an answer;
- third level: consultation, such as when departments or committees reach policy conclusions and disseminate findings for discussion. In this case, individuals may be invited to attend meetings and make their views known;
- fourth level: direct dialogue between citizens and parliamentarians, in which each side is prepared to listen and learn from the other.
The idea here would be the create an online “citizen-engagement resource centre” where MPs and parliamentary staff could find resources for training for staff, and products, such as kits containing essential tools for effective citizen engagement.
Following the Cairo Conference it is proposed that the APKN – Communication and Public Information Group articulates its capacity building activities of the first year focusing on:
- Learn how to run a productive “town-hall meeting”;
- Learn how to communicate effectively;
- MP Web sites as tool to communicate, engage and interact with citizens;
- How design polls and collect data;
- How to manage committee hearings.
