Executive Summary
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3. Objectives
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Rationale
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The goal of the programme is to foster transparency and accountability, support democratic participation of civil society and strengthen inter-parliamentary cooperation in the Parliaments of Africa.
The acquisition and management of information is the most critical expertise that African Parliaments need to develop. Increasing the effectiveness of information acquisition, elaboration, and dissemination, is the best way for a Parliament to significantly increase its knowledge and capacity. This Programme will focus on information and knowledge capacity building and intends to contribute to the strengthening of Parliaments in Africa as vital components of democratic societies and essential elements of good governance.
Objective:
To empower African Parliaments to play a strategic role in promoting good governance, and to become open, participatory, knowledge-based learning organisations by: building information and knowledge management capacities, developing information services and tools to support inter-parliamentary collaboration and deploying Parliamentary Information Systems.
The modernisation of Parliaments and their transition into transparent, knowledge-based, learning organisations will require the implementation of an articulated mix of activities from the general issue of establishing an enabling and supporting environment; to the critical and strategic one of building human capacity and developing high quality value-added information and collaboration services for parliaments.
The programme activities will concur in the creation of:
- An enabling legal, organisational, and technical environment. Parliaments cannot modernise in a vacuum, they need enabling environments that understand and promote access to information as a governance and development tool and appreciate the role that ICTs could play in this context.
- Capacity and skill in information and knowledge management. The most critical asset of a Parliament is its human resource. New technologies and information need knowledgeable people to use and interpret them. New technologies and information need knowledgeable people to use and interpret them. The empowerment of this human resource is the most critical factor in successfully tackling the modernisation of African Parliaments.
- Information services, e-training and information portals. Members of Parliament need to be conversant with the issues over which they debate, legislate and make policies. Access to quality information services, as well as to up to date knowledge repositories specifically targeted for African Parliaments is very important . Comprehensive ICTs tools and techniques are needed to manage this information, and training needs to be developed for the new skills required.
- Parliamentary information systems and tools tailored to African Parliaments. In order to work effectively at the best of their potentialities, parliaments need to be provided with the ICTs systems and tools necessary to provide access and manage effectively the information requirements for parliaments in the creation, management and dissemination of legislative and parliamentary digital documents.
- Synergy among development partners assisting African Parliaments. A better coordination among development partners and a concerted action to build on existing development efforts and local capacities, can ensure a better rationalization of human and financial resources invested in development assistance to African Parliaments.