The National Democratic Institute (NDI), Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Omidyar Network and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) organized the conference "Governing Democratically in a Tech-Empowered World", on 23-24 April 2013, to explore how technology is changing the ways in which democracies function and how to support democratic institutions, particularly in developing democracies, in adapting to these changes. Anders Johnsson, Secretary General of IPU, delivered opening remarks and UN/DESA was represented by Flavio Zeni, Chief Technical Adviser, Africa i-Parliament Action Plan.

• Ordre du jour et ordre du jour annoté (PDF)
  

13 septembre
08h00 – 09h15	Inscription des délégués

La Conférence mondiale 2012 sur l’e-Parlement a eu lieu à la Chambre des députés d'Italie, à Rome, les 13, 14 et 15 Septembre. La clôture de la Conférence a coincidé avec la Journée internationale de la démocratie, établie en 2008 par l'Assemblée générale des Nations Unies.

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As part of the initiative to increase House transparency and improve access to legislative data, the Committee on House Administration adopted new standards that require all House legislative documents be published electronically in an open, searchable format on one centralized website.

 

 

 

The Reports, prepared by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, intend to help legislatures to harness the potential benefits of ICT for their work and establish key goals and priorities for exploiting this valuable resource. While providing evidence of the complexities of e-parliament, the Reports suggest ways to overcome some of the obstacles to the effective use of technology in parliamentary settings.

New media platforms are changing how people communicate with each other around the world. However, there is great variation in both the kind of communication platforms people make use of as well as in how they access these platforms. Computer ownership and internet access are still the prerogative of the wealthy few in wide swathes of the African continent. All the same, mobile internet access is on the rise and if current growth rates continue, African mobile phone penetration will reach 100 per cent by 2014.

How do you write a new constitution in the 21st century? You go where the people are - online. That was the decision of tiny but tech-savvy Iceland, which is overhauling its constitution in the wake of an economic catastrophe, and has turned to the Internet to get input from citizens. The 25-member council drafting the new constitution is reaching out to Icelanders online, especially through social media sites Facebook and Twitter, video-sharing site YouTube and photo site Flickr.

Funded with support from the European Commission, the WeGov project aims to develop a toolset that leverages a wide range of existing and well established social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, WordPress etc.) to engage citizens in two-way dialogs as part of governance and policymaking processes. The tools will make it possible to detect, track and mine opinions and discussions on policy oriented topics.

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) tried to block access to social networks on 14 April, when “Walk to Work” demonstrations were held in several cities in protest against food and gasoline price hikes.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned as "outrageous and illegal" a cyber-attack on a popular social networking website that hosts his blog.

Smartphones and social networking sites are likely to become the next big target for cyber criminals, according to a security industry report.

Facebook has removed a page calling for a new Palestinian uprising against Israel after more than 350,000 people signed up to it.

Take Action Panel took place in Rome, on 7 February. Around 50 people attended the event, and 100 followed the livestreaming, kindly implemented by the U.S. Embassy to Italy. The Head of Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, Mr. Gherardo Casini, presented results of the last e-Parliament report. Assuming “new technologies are dramatically changing the political environment”, Mr. Casini explored strenghts and weaknesses of new forms of interaction between MPs and civil society: “the problem is that Parliaments are not falimiar with technologies, and citizens are not familiar with the legislative process”. However, effective case studies and positive results were presented – such as Chile.