This story originally appeared on OpeningParliament.org's blog.

Issues of legislative openness and citizen engagement were highlighted at the European and Asia Pacific regional meetings of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) last week, as NDI and partners in the Chilean Congress organized sessions of the Legislative Openness Working Group.

At the Asia Pacific regional conference in Bali (May 6-7), an event hosted by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Dan Swislow, NDI program officer, moderated a panel of high-level officials from government, parliament and civil society. The panel delved into the challenges that parliaments face in engaging citizens who often have a declining trust in government.

New Zealand Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne described his government’s use of technology to respond to citizens' increasing expectations, saying, "Not only are people much more willing to engage using the Internet, they expect to transact and engage via the Internet." Dunne said that nearly 60 percent of New Zealanders report using government services online, a win-win. "This shift in the use of technology gives governments the ability to reach a wider audience for lower cost."

New Zealand also has ascribed this strategy to the legislative branch. It was the first country to attempt to crowdsource citizen input into legislation, creating an online "wiki" to collect citizens' ideas on the 2008 Policing Act. The Parliament continues to allow online citizen submissions around draft bills under consideration as part of its recently launched beta.govt.nz website, which also provides a plethora of information about parliamentary activity.

The nature of how parliaments provide citizens with information about their activities was of particular interest for audience members and civil society participants in the panel who emphasized the importance of avoiding just a passive posting of legislative information, often in formats that aren't suitable for reuse. Lucy Park, director of Team POPONG in South Korea (presentation available here) and Chakshu Roy, outreach director for PRS Legislative Research in India, both expressed the need for governments to not only release information on websites or portals, but to take care to engage citizens with the data and make public participation and input into the democratic process easier.

The panel also recognized that each country might confront its own unique challenges in responding to rising citizen expectations for government. Hon. Eva Sundari, a member of the People’s Representative Council of Indonesia, discussed the challenges of citizen engagement in a country of 250 million people spread out over many islands, who often don’t have access to the internet. In addition to utilizing new technologies, Sundari explained the continuing importance of utilizing traditional media and providing opportunities for MPs to engage their constituents directly and include civil society in the lawmaking process.

Joining these panelists from outside the region, Dante Preisser, a senior advisor to the chair of the Committee on Transparency and Access to Information of the Mexican Senate, echoed the importance of cooperation with civil society. Preisser shared the experience of the newly launched Open Parliament Partnership in Mexico, an outgrowth of the LOWG’s work that formally partners local civil society organizations with a new bicameral commission on transparency in the Mexican Congress. This initiative is a landmark for OGP, as Mexico joined Chile as the second country to formally commit to creating a legislative action plan.

On the other side of the world in Dublin, Juan Pablo Olmedo, chief advisor to the Chilean Congress' Bicameral Commission on Legislative Transparency, and NDI staff member Greg Brown organized a session of the LOWG during the European regional meeting (May 8-9). This panel focused on similar themes, espousing the importance of citizen engagement in bringing legislatures into the 21st century.

Liia Hänni, a former member of the Estonian Parliament and current program director at the e-Governance Academy, described the recent passage of legislation that requires the parliament to formally address public petitions that pass a certain signature threshold. While some audience members expressed some doubt in the measure’s potential, it was noted as one of many positive experiments being attempted by parliaments exploring new ways to include citizens in the legislative process.

Describing one such experiment, Justine McGuinness, external communications advisor to UK House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, explained, "What it means to be representative has to be reexamined constantly." The Speaker’s new Commission on Digital Democracy, a committee of MPs and members of civil society, is currently soliciting input from citizens and experts both on and offline to find ways to address the challenges brought about in Parliament by the digital age. She described legislature's embracing of technology as crucial, "Digital democracy should be seen as an integral part of parliament reaching out, listening and talking to the outside world. It affords us the opportunity to improve our responsiveness to the electorate."

The panel expressed particular optimism about the chance for legislatures to take advantage of being a part of the Open Government Partnership. Saša Šegrt, project development coordinator with GONG in Croatia, the OGP provides her organization with a platform to advocate parliament to improve its procedures for citizen consultation around draft legislation and update its website. OGP’s structure, which attempts to provide equal footing for governments and civil society in developing openness reforms, creates a unique opportunity for inclusion.

OGP also puts the spotlight on important and innovative government reforms. Deputy Minister for Administrative Reform and e-Governance and member of parliament in Greece, Dr. Evy Christofilopoulou, mentioned her Ministry’s requirement that all government acts be posted online in order for them to become valid, and posed it as an example of a place where the country’s legislature would do well to follow the government's lead. 'As a deputy, some of us have asked our own parliament why don't we do the same for parliamentary acts?"

In addition to addressing a number of questions around legislative openness at these events, the LOWG's co-anchors NDI and the Congress of Chile also announced the launch of a global survey on legislative openness, which will compile information about parliaments' adherence to accepted standards on transparency and citizen engagement. The survey will be modeled after benchmarks like the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness, an internationally recognized standards framework developed by the OpeningParliament.org community of 150 parliamentary monitoring organizations from nearly 80 countries convened by NDI, the Sunlight Foundation and the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency. A formal launch of the survey will take place in the coming weeks.

The LOWG continues to build on the momentum created by these events, in addition to activities like a legislative exchange between Honduras and Mexico organized in March through the group, with support from the World Bank.

OGP is a multilateral partnership between governments and civil society started in 2011 by the Obama Administration and the governments of seven additional countries. In less than three years, OGP has expanded to include 64 countries. Launched at last year's Annual OGP Summit in London, the Legislative Openness Working Group (LOWG) has become increasingly active in OGP as the first opportunity to formally include legislatures in its work. The LOWG is co-anchored by the Bicameral Commission on Legislative Transparency of the Congress of Chile and NDI. Since its launch, the group has welcomed the inclusion of government representatives, parliamentarians, and civil society organizations from 25 countries to participate in its activities—detailed in a workplan for 2014 launched in February.

More information on the group can be found at the Open Government Partnership's website.

Published May 23, 2014