The Report of the World e-Parliament Conference 2009 is now available.

Background

The World e-Parliament Conference is the annual forum of the community of parliaments addressing, from both the policy and technical perspectives, how the use of information and communication technology can help improve representation, transparency, accountability, openness, and effectiveness in the complex parliamentary environment.

The World e-Parliament Conference 2009, took place on 3, 4 and 5 November 2009 at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., was built on the results of two previous conferences held respectively in Geneva (2007) and Brussels (2008), as well as on the findings of the World e-Parliament Report 2008. The 2009 event was co-organized by the United Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament.

At the conference, members of parliaments, secretaries-general, parliamentary staff and officials, experts from international organizations and academics who work and deal with information and communication technologies in legislatures had the opportunity to analyze good practices, exchange views on latest trends and institutional developments, learn from each other’s experiences, network with peers, and build partnerships in an international setting.

Structure and topics of the Conference

The World e-Parliament Conference 2009 lasted two and a half days, starting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 November 2009 and ending in the late afternoon of Thursday, 5 November 2009.
The event was structured around three policy-oriented plenary sessions and ten parallel sessions of a more technical nature.

The three plenary sessions touched upon the following topics:

• Connecting Parliaments and citizens: new technologies to foster openness, transparency, and accountability
• How ICT can strengthen Parliaments in emerging democracies
• Promoting democracy and inter-parliamentary cooperation: a collaborative approach to institutional building through a shared framework for e-parliament

The first two sessions took place in the afternoon of the first day, while the third preceded the conclusion of the conference in the afternoon of the last day.
Presenters including Speakers and senior members and officials of parliament, high-level representatives of Governments and international organizations, and world renowned experts. In each session ample time was set aside for open discussion from the floor.
In the conference agenda, the ten parallel sessions have been grouped into two tracks - general sessions and specialized sessions – to highlight the technical level addressed by the specific track. Each session featured presentations delivered by three to four parliamentary experts followed by open discussions to foster exchanges of views among legislatures.

General sessions:

• ICT strategic planning, management and oversight: the complexity of the legislature environment
• How parliamentary websites can serve different purposes and users
• The use of new media in the parliamentary environment: lessons learned
• Systems for managing the lifecycle of legislative documentation
• Chamber technologies: experiences and trends

Specialized sessions:

• Open standards for parliamentary documentation
• Implementing XML in parliament
• Infrastructure and security: policies and implications in legislature settings
• Technology options for recording and reporting floor and committee proceedings
• Enhancing parliamentary library services through ICT

In all sessions there was a focus on the point of view of constituents and their engagement with the institution of parliament.

During the World e-Parliament Conference 2009, the preliminary results of the Global Survey on ICT in Parliament were presented, along with guidelines and tools developed to help parliaments assess and improve their technological level. The conference also served as a platform to identify and agree upon future goals and targets for the international community of parliaments and to provide inputs to the next World e-Parliament Report 2010.
The event was be officially opened and closed in plenary by the representatives of the co-organizing institutions.

Participants

More than 450 participants attended the World e-Parliament Conference 2009, representing parliamentary assemblies from around the world. Delegations including parliamentary Leaders and members with decision-making power over the information and communication policies of the legislature, secretaries-general and clerks with management responsibilities over legislative processes and organizational matters, directors of ICT departments and information services, parliamentary IT staff and experts, as well as representatives of international organizations, the donor community, and academia.
To ensure a balanced representation, efforts were made by the co-organizers to identify funds available for travel and accommodation of parliamentary staff from developing countries.

Languages

The working languages of the conference were English, French and Spanish.

Location