The Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica) is joining other Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations (PMOs), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and the academia among others to discuss Open Parliament initiatives around the world and building public participation in the Parliamentary process in a P20 Side event dubbed: “Pathways of Strengthening Democracy Through Open Parliament”.
The discussion will look on various approaches in strengthening and building a better process for public participation, public engagement in the parliamentary decision-making process, including Open Government Partnership (OGP) Participation and Co- creation Standards and Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Global Parliamentary Report 2022 on Public engagement in the work of Parliament. This event will answer the fourth priority issue of the 8th G20 Parliamentary Speakers Summit (P20 Speakers’ Summit) on building an effective parliament with a vibrant democracy.
The Executive Director of PNAfrica, Sammy Obeng, is expected to share some of the ground breaking initiatives which have so far been implemented by PNAfrica and its partners in West Africa and Africa as a whole in furtherance of the Open Parliament Agenda.
Among these initiatives are the formation of the African Parliamentary Monitoring Network (APMON), the launch of the Open Parliament Index (OPI), and the formation of the African Parliamentary Press Network (APPN) among others, which are all geared towards the realization of an Open Parliament Regime in Africa.
The other panelist for the discussion session on Thursday, September 29, 2022, to be moderated by Juan F. Krahl include: Maria Baron|Global Executive Director of Directorio Legislativo Argentina; Yanuar Nugroho|Coordinator of Expert Team, SDGs National Secretariat, OGP Envoy; Ahmad Hanafi |Director of Indonesia Parliamentary Center (IPC); Fransisca Fitri | Executive Director YAPPIKA-ActionAid.
This panel session is aimed to explore and build a dialogue surrounding the urgency, priorities and challenges in building public participation processes in the parliament and strengthening civic space. The discussion will dive into various perspectives of actors, stakeholders and institutions with different contexts of democracies to seek insights, experiences and strategies of public participation that could be valuable for the parliamentary process.
As a part of supporting the 8th G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit celebration hosted by the Indonesian parliament on the 5-7th October 2022, this session will offer an outcome document through a joint communique that will be recorded, compiled and recommended by the CSOs and stakeholders of the session. This document will support one of the main themes of the summit on building an effective parliament with vibrant democracy.
This event will deliver a joint communique output from CSOs partners that will be deliberated from the session and be sent as a recommendation for the 8th G20 Parliamentary Speakers Summit (P20 Speakers’ Summit) that will be held in the 5-7th October 2022 for the theme on building an effective parliament with a vibrant democracy.
Participants will consist of invited guests from the parliament, government, partners from civil society organizations, experts, academia, activists on openness and reformative issues, as well as the general public through the online zoom service.
Source: Clement Akoloh||ghanaiannews.ca