As more citizens turn to the Internet to engage in political activity, elected representatives are finding new ways to communicate with constituents and engage them in decision-making. The Legislative Openness Working Group of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) is launching a global campaign today, the International Day of Democracy, to help countries share tools and strategies for engaging tech-empowered citizens. The working group – co-anchored by the Chilean Congress and NDI – encourages partnership countries to develop concrete commitments to make their legislatures more open and accessible to the public.

The Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) – Sept. 15-25 – will kick off with a two-day regional working group meeting in Montenegro, hosted in partnership with the Parliament of Montenegro. Members of parliament, parliamentary staff and civil society groups, primarily from Central and Eastern Europe, will come together to discuss the use of technology to open the legislative process to greater citizen participation.

GLOW will conclude with the working group’s annual meeting hosted by the Congress of Chile. This meeting will occur alongside the ParlAmericas Plenary Assembly, in Santiago, Chile, from Sept. 25-27, which will also address issues of legislative openness.  

Throughout GLOW, the working group will organize a series of three focused “Tweet Talks” to discuss specific areas of legislative openness, at #OpenParl2014. The #OpenParl2014 hashtag will also connect independent activities being organized by legislatures and civil society groups in more than a dozen countries, including conferences, “Open Parliament Days” and hackathons for building applications around government data.

GLOW events are being planned in Argentina, Australia, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Guatemala, Jordan, Kosovo, Liberia, Mexico, Poland and Venezuela, and more countries are expected to participate in GLOW via social media.

Visit openparl2014.org for more details and the latest news, and follow the action at #OpenParl2014.

Published Sept. 15, 2014