The Executive Director of the Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica), Mr. Sammy Obeng, has indicated that Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are ready to collaborate with parliaments to co-create open parliament reforms.
This, he noted, was evident in West Africa over the past year, following the launch of the maiden Open Parliament Index (OPI) report.
Mr. Obeng made this remark during a webinar organised by PNAfrica, under the auspices of the African Parliamentary Monitoring Organisations Network (APMON), in commemoration with the International Day of Parliamentarism, which marks the anniversary of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a time to review the progress that parliaments have made over the period in the discharge of their core functions.
The event brought together stakeholders, partners and CSOs from all over the continent of Africa and beyond to engage and discuss the progress made after the launch of the maiden African Open Parliament Index 2022.
The event gave opportunities to CSOs to assess the Impact, share lessons and Identify challenges of the index with their respective Parliaments.
In his open remarks, Mr. Obeng noted that the OPI report, since its launch in 2022 has received lots of positive feedback from all the 13 West African countries that were assessed.
Evidences of these, he indicated, are discussions made on the index on the floor of parliaments, and parliamentarians pledging their willingness to do more in ensuring open parliament.
In furtherance to this evidence, the Executive Director noted that press conferences, statements, and speeches have been made by high-level officials in parliament including speakers of parliament, with some countries challenging themselves to do more to maintain and attain better results in the next index.
The Executive Director also cited downloads of the report, which is in three languages by the public, all over the continent, as proof of the success of the report.
He indicated that the willingness of countries to support the index has proved that the project is a great initiative and the 2024 second edition will be expanded beyond West Africa to include the Eastern and Southern African countries and if possible, the North and Central part of the continent as well.
“This has become necessary as a result of calls to include other African countries thus the need to increase from the 25% of Africa to 50% and beyond,” Mr. Obeng underscored.
According to him, the measure of the next OPI, which from January to June 2024 will be intense based on improved methodology, data, facts and figures from parliament, CSOs, Media and other sources.
It’s in light of this that Mr. Obeng announced to close to a hundred participants at the event that the second OPI report will be launched at the first African Parliamentary Monitoring Organisation Network (APMON) national conference to be held next year.
The conference he indicated will discuss parliament and parliamentary engagement, and will provide a menu of options to the various countries on the continent to identify where they are lacking and to also learn what other countries are doing in these areas.
By Florence Gbolu
