Elected officials and citizen groups are looking for ways to make legislatures more open and accessible in order to strengthen public services, drive economic growth, reduce poverty and make governments more accountable.

The Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) is the second annual week of events organized by members of the legislative openness community and Legislative Openness Working Group of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). OGP is a multilateral initiative of 66 participating countries; its legislative openness working group works to share information around specific reforms designed to advance legislative transparency and improved citizen engagement. 

Last year, parliaments and civil society organizations organized 45 events in more than 30 countries to commemorate GLOW. This year, GLOW will focus on encouraging citizen groups and legislatures to commit to parliamentary openness by organizing their own activities, such as “Open Parliament Day,” a legislative hackathon, a social media campaign or other creative activities. For instance, as part of this campaign, parliamentary monitoring organizations around the world, led by MySociety in the UK, are taking part in a crowdsourcing effort to store and share open data on every national-level legislator in the world.

GLOW will feature concurrent events organized by the Working Group and the global parliamentary openness community, including in-person meetings, online activities, and advocacy efforts. This year’s campaign will kick off  on Sept. 7 in conjunction with the AbreLatam and ConDatos conferences in Santiago, Chile. GLOW events are being planned from Sept. 7-15 in Albania, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Georgia, Guatemala, Liberia, and the United States. See a full calendar of events here.

GLOW will conclude on International Day of Democracy with the second annual global legislative openness conference, organized by the Parliament of Georgia, the Congress of Chile and NDI, in Tbilisi, Georgia, from Sept. 14-15. The conference, titled Committing to Openness: Parliamentary Action Plans, Standards and Tools, will focus on strategies for advancing parliamentary openness, including developing action plans, endorsing international standards, and developing new technologies. More than 70 foreign delegates, including government, parliamentary and civil society leaders will attend the conference.

Visit openparlweek.org for more details and the latest news, and follow developments throughout the campaign on Twitter at #OpenParl2015.

Published Sept. 9, 2015