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Background
The Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network(APKN) was established in June of 2008 to support capacity building activities, common services, sharing of experiences and best practices among African Parliaments. It is based on the founding principles of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the African Union which underlines the need for better coordination and collaboration among African Parliaments to meet the the multiple challenges posed by economic and social integration and the need to harmonize legislation in member countries.
The Pan African Parliament, established to provide a common platform for African peoples and their grass roots organisations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing the continent, has, with the organisation of first ever Africa Speaker s' Conference held in October 2009 in Midrand, meant to address the issues of parliamentary cooperation at the highest level. The Conference concluded that the need to collaborate more effectively is very much felt by all and that ICT provide unique opportunities to enhance the sharing of ideas, experiences and good practices as well as increasing the engagement of PAP with member parliaments.
The Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan of the UN/DESA, an Africa-wide initiative to empower African Parliaments to better fulfil their democratic functions by supporting their efforts to become open, participatory, knowledge-based and learning organisations, has been supporting activities of the APKN since its set up.
This Conference, organised within framework of APKN activities, is meant to follow up on discussion of the PAP Speakers Conference 2009 and further explore how ICTs can effectively contribute to make parliaments more open accessible , collaborative and more effective, thus making parliaments more open becoming i-parliaments(interconnected parliaments or open parliaments). The workshop will also be used as preparatory meeting for the planned APKN Plenary, Speakers Conference 2010 and World e-Parliament Conference to be held in October 2010 in South Africa.
