Enhancing the Role and Effective participation of Parliamentarians in the APRM process May 2010, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Girma Dessalegn ICT and Science & Technology Division (ISTD) Economic Commission for Africa Strengthening African Parliaments Role through the use of ICTs : ECA’s Experiences

Contents  Background  AISI Implementation: ECA activities with African Parliament  ICTs for effective Participation of MPs in the APRM process  The Way Forward

Information Society – A Development challenge Potential threats  Tendency to expose and exploit inherent weaknesses in the economies of developing countries, particularly Africa  Widening the disparities at domestic levels and internationally  Consequently, new thinking on the relevance of Information Society to development

Information Society – A Development challenge?  Digital gap in Africa represents a development gap, and also  Information factor of production  Critical factor in poverty reduction  Important in socio-economic sectors, health, education, agriculture, etc  ICTs useful tool in addressing all MDGs  Effective implementation of national and sub- region ICT strategies can address APRM Goals

AISI IMPLEMENTATION & African Parliaments A frican I nformation S ociety I nitiative Regional framework for ICT development – 1996 Effective mainstreaming of ICT in national development agendas: PRSPs, MDGs, etc What is the AISI ?

AISI Launched in 1996 Focus Areas E-Strategies AISI Info & Knowledge Development Outreach & Communication Partnership & Networking

E-Strategies  Regional Information and Communication Infrastructure (RICI)  National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI)  Sectoral Information and Communication Infrastructure (SICI)  Village Information and Communication Infrastructure (VICI) RICI VICI AISI NICI SICI SCAN-ICT Parliaments’ Involvement

AISI & African Parliament ECA’s work with Africa Parliaments, is geared towards equipping members and staff of African parliaments with the ICT tools and adequate knowledge to the ICT tools and adequate knowledge to support its primary functions of representation, law-making and oversight more effectively - Strategies include:  Strengthen Human and Institutional Capacity: Making ICT Work within Parliament  Strengthen oversight over Policies role  Strengthen capacity in harnessing ICT for good Governance (e-Governance) and democratic processes (e-democracy)  Promote ICT for constituencies development and inter- parliamentary cooperation

Making ICT Work in Parliaments  Train MPs and Staff to use ICTs to access information, as well as Internet / Intranet document  Support/ advise on the development, extend the deployment of ICT infrastructure  Develop strategies to raise awareness within parliaments on practical benefits of ICT for development, national and sub-regional e-strategies  Enhance the parliamentary-constituency interaction and outreach  A total of 500 MPs and staff benefited for training, 120 Ethiopian MPs by ITCA, Swaziland, Gambia and Niger Parliaments

ICT to strengthen Oversight role  Organise capacity building workshop for the role of Parliament in building the Knowledge Society Promoting ICT Committee creation  Ensure that policies are inclusive, sustainable and equitable  Ensure adequate national budget and mobilize other innovative financing mechanisms  Adopt adequate legislation for the Information Society  Ensure that policies monitoring portal made available by government  Deploying ICT applications tools for better Hearings, questions to Governments, other policy setting and scrutiny documents  SADC PF, Niger, Gambia, Swaziland, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia have benefited from this activity more requests are received from ten other Parliaments

Promoting ICT for Good-Governance and effective Democracy  Learn from best Practices in e-Governance and e-Democracy  Undertake research on strategies for promoting e-governance and e-democracy  Deploying ICT applications tools for better inter-action with citizens  Promote e-governance/ e-democracy legislations

ICT empower Parliaments Main Functions

 Democracy and Political Governance;  Economic Governance and Management;  Corporate Governance; and  Socio-Economic Development - Promoting e-democracy Tools: - E-Government - E-Governance - Effective e-strategies implementation - Mainstreaming ICT in development Agendas: MDGs-PRSP-YP - Promoting e-democracy Tools: - E-Government - E-Governance - Effective e-strategies implementation - Mainstreaming ICT in development Agendas: MDGs-PRSP-YP SICI RICI NICI What are we expecting to assess under APRM? How can ICT Contribute?  Good governance  Trust and Accountability  Citizen’s awareness and empowerment  Citizen’s welfare  Democracy  Nation’s economic growth

How ICT can empower Parliament in APRM Process- what are the opportunities?  Informed elected representative required access to real time information, best practice  It is vital that Parliament knows what it knows, where to find this knowledge, and how to share accumulated information  ICT can help MP to connect to existing networks, (South African) ex: Government Communication and Information System (GCIS)  ICTs make it easier and faster for constituents to interact with Parliamentarians and influence lawmaking and oversight of public affairs of direct concern to them

How ICT can empower Parliament in APRM Process- what are the opportunities?  ICT enable MPs know the demands of the stakeholders and hence become more Responsive to their needs  ICTs can render the MP role in APRM process more efficient by providing the means for citizens to express their concerns online  ICTs, therefore, have a vital role to play in providing both MPs and citizens with access to ready-to-use, reliable data and specialized information

What are the opportunities?  Knowledge repository, blogs, personalized websites, citizen portals, webcasting, radio-streams, public access points, database, s, e-forum can be used by MP in the APRM process, these applications can help to :  to strengthen interaction between Parliament, Government Departments, civil society and the public (case of India)  to get views, analyze, assess a situation etc  to undertake research tasks to be well informed about citizens’ concerns  benchmark with other best practices in other countries  assess any shortcomings in the performance of ministries in APRM framework

What are the opportunities?  Civil society participation in diagnosis  Monitoring of results on the ground  Transforming representative democracy into a participative one;

Way Forward Create in the Parliament or strengthen  APRM COMMITTEE  ICT COMMITTEE

Thank You !