Join us for the launch of OGP’s Legislative Openness Working Group

Cross posted with the permission of the author from blog.openingparliament.org

Just a few months ago, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) announced the creation of the Legislative Openness Working Group (LOWG), one of five new thematic working groups to be launched in 2013. Since then, a growing list of 21 countries have nominated legislative branch and/or government representatives to contribute to the LOWG, including OGP co-chairs Indonesia and the UK. In addition, more than 50 civil society organizations from around the world have indicated an interest in participating.*

Joined this week by many of these partners in London, the LOWG will be officially launched at the OGP Annual Summit. We warmly invite everyone attending the Summit to join us for this exciting event.

The launch is scheduled for October 31 at 14:15 GMT. You can see the launch’s agenda and watch a live stream of the event here.

After welcome remarks from the Leader of the UK House of Commons, Andrew Lansley, viewers will get a chance to hear from the co-anchors of the LOWG, the Congress of Chile and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). This will include remarks from Senator Hernán Larraín who will discuss efforts by the Chilean Congress to become the first legislature to make commitments as part of an OGP Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen....

There will be short presentations given on the UK Cabinet Office’s Good Law initiative, the inspiring cooperation in Mexico between civil society and the Senate of the Republic, and the global effort by civil society organizations around the world to advocate for open legislatures through the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness. A special panel of commentators, including legislators and civil society representatives, will convene immediately afterwards.

The LOWG will be the first time that the issue of legislative openness will be formally included as part of OGP, and offers an opportunity for OGP Member Countries to broaden the focus of their Action Plans and make more ambitious, comprehensive commitments to openness. The group will seek to provide a forum for peer-to-peer sharing of best practices, tools and resources on the topic, as well as create chances for partnership among participating legislatures and civil society organizations.

The launch of the LOWG is not the only legislative-focused event taking place at the OGP Annual Summit. There will be a number of civil society organizations tackling this issue at theCivil Society Day on October 30. NDI will give a brief presentation on its “Open Parliament” chapter of the new Open Government Guide that will be released at the Summit. And mySociety, OpenAustralia and others will host a session called “Opening Parliaments – Strengthening Democracy” on November 1 at 11:15 GMT, which can be live streamed here.

For those not in London, stay tuned to the live streams of the events, the @OpenParl Twitter account, and follow the #openparl hashtag, which we encourage everyone to use in addition to the Summit hashtag (#OGP13) for all of the above events.

*Countries include: Armenia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Moldova, Paraguay, the UK and Uruguay. The LOWG co-anchors will maintain an open door policy for CSOs to participate, with the aim of providing them an equal seat at the table.