ICT - A driver for improving Democracy - E-government.ge

ICT - A driver for improving DemocracyGEORGIAN CYBER SECURITY AND ICT INNOVATION CONFERENCE 2010TBILISI, NOVEMBER 2010IGOR ANDONOVSKI, COO NEXTSENSEVALUE OF BUSINESS PROCESS AND PROCEDURE STREAMLINING

e-Democracye-Democracy refers to the use of information technologies andcommunication technologies and strategies in political and governanceprocesses.The goal of e-democracy is to reverse the cynicism citizens have about theirgovernment institutions.“Tell me and I will forget,show me and I will remember,involve me and I will understand.”An old Chinese proverbe-Democracy IS –• right of access and accountability• right to discuss and debate• constituent’ s voice being heard and valuede-Democracy IS NOT –• just about technology• an e-government service• a “push-button” democracy• an answer to all problems

Parliament objectivesKey characteristics of a democratic parliament• representative: that is, socially and politically representative of the diversity of the people, andensuring equal opportunities and protections for all its members;• transparent: that is, being open to the nation through different media, and transparent in theconduct of its business;• accessible: involving the public, associations and movements of civil society, in the work ofparliament;• accountable: this involves members of parliament being accountable to the electorate for theirperformance in office and integrity of conduct;• effective: this means the effective organization of business in accordance with these democraticvalues, and the performance of parliament’s legislative and oversight functions in a manner thatserves the needs of the whole population.Source: Parliament and democracy in the twenty-first century: A guide to good practice, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2006.

ICT as a driver• Facilitate dialogue between public and their government• Empower populations and strengthen community engagement• Reduce barriers to participation such as time, geographical locationand allow for views to be expressed in a private non-confrontationalarena• Appeal to “hard-to-reach” groups, e.g. young people• Innovative solutions could encourage bottom up participation

Nextsense e-Democracy Solutionsa building block for integrated Legislative Knowledge Management

e-Parliament, a strategic approach for improving democracyAchieve more transparent, cost-effectiveand faster processes in parliament with theusage of ICT.Give access to rich, contextual information to everyone involved in parliamentaryprocesses: MPs, professionals, experts, media and citizens. Allow faster decisionmakingand lower bureaucracy through information systems that enable access toinformation to anyone, anywhere and on any device.Declarationfor establishing thee-ParliamentCommon goal(Position / Opposition)Joint strategicleadership at thehighest levelICT companies withExperience, Vision andTechnology Excellence

Others about e-Parliament …E-Parliament gives us an opportunity to break with old ways of thinking and engage in dialogue justas the young people of the world are.When it comes to governance, technology provides opportunities for citizen discussion and publicengagement; it strengthens accountability; ultimately, it will help democracies be more democratic.Welcoming Remarks by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to the WorldE-Parliament Conference 2009, Washington D.C., 3 November 2009e-Parliament can be defined as a legislature that is empowered to be more transparent, accessible andaccountable through ICT. It empowers people, in all their diversity, to be more engaged in public life byproviding higher quality information and greater access to its parliamentary documents and activities.It is an organization where connected stakeholders use information and communication technologies tosupport its primary functions of representation, law-making and oversight more effectively.World e-Parliament Report 2008, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Inter-Parliamentary Union through the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament

e-Parliament - Processes• Legislation process– Initiating new bill– Process of preparation, approval and submission of bills– Process of collecting signatures for the request for first reading– Process of submission of amendments• Sessions of committees(agenda, conclusions, minutes, voting results, transcripts, video andaudio recordings, ...)• Plenary Sessions (agenda, conclusions, transcripts, voting reports...)• Parliamentary Questions• Automation of work of President of Assembly, Secretary General, MPs,Parliamentary groups (specific interfaces for every user role)• Publishing of daily material in procedure, scheduled meetings, agenda,conclusions, transcripts, voting reports of the Sessions Parliament andworking bodies

e-Parliament - Common functions• Workflow• Remote access• Digital signatures of every critical action• System generated documents and letters in every step in theprocess based on templates• Notifications for deadlines, new sessions, new acts in processthrough solution interface, email, SMS• Mobile view• Single sign-on• Key Performance Indicators• Multiple versions of acts and document• Parliament web TV with searchable video and audio archive• Subscriptions for notifications

e-Parliament - Common functions• publishing, sharing and searching (enabling the capturing, sharing and rapid search and retrieval ofproceedings in chambers and committees);• collaboration (enabling the flow of appropriate information between Parliamentary stakeholders);• tracking and workflow (enabling an understanding of the key issues and where to focus attention,such as the progress of draft legislation);• interaction with government (ensuring the smooth two-way communication including parliamentaryquestions raised by the Parliament for answer by the government);• interactions with other Parliaments (ensuring that various tiers of national and supranationalParliaments – such as between national and supra-national bodies such as the EU Parliament);• information analysis (enabling the transformation of information into insight);

e-Parliament - Common functions• multi-lingual support (enabling Parliaments to communicate with each other effectively and withinand across states where multi-lingual environments are required, including support for constituentswith diverse language requirements);• accessibility (ensuring that both legal and moral requirements are met in terms of equality of accessand participation to those with disabilities);• mobility of access (ensuring that the services and information are available whilst Members, theirstaff and Officials are on the move and that they do not physically need to be within theParliamentary estate to make use of Parliamentary services);• security (ensuring best practice security procedures and the deployment of systems built torecognised standards of international security accreditation);• adoption of open-interoperability standards (ensuring interoperability between systems regardlessof their platform, technology or vendor)

InitiatingScrutinyParliament - ProcessesSign the proposed billPreparation (collab.) on billInvitingco-proposersBill InitiationSubmit to Parliament procedureAnalyze technicalcomplianceDetermining primary workingcommitteeNotify Civic, MPs& GovernmentCollecting signatures forthe requestNotify Committees and MPsSchedule and heldCommittee Meetings andDecisionsSchedule and held PlenarySessionPrepare AmendmentCommitteeMeetingsAmend billsPresident signs the lawPlenarysessionParliament submits toOfficial JournalOfficial JournalMP QuestionsPlenarysession

New add-ons / Improvements• Social Networking (Facebook / Twitter)– Direct contact between citizens and their representatives– Can empower individuals to gain redress in the event of criticism– Citizen involvement in legislation and other committee work of a parliament– Parliamentary members are more accessible to citizens and social groups, and they can exercise influence inturn.– with the advent of web 2.0 technologies, such as blogging and social networking Parliaments can support civilengagement.• Multi-touch– Interactions are performed using gestures and flicks– With Multi-touch users can literary to “grab bills and decisions with hands” and move information with simplegestures and touches– The intuitive and approachable interface– Improve communication, shorten the learning curve and enhance efficiency in consuming information

Quick wins / Benefits• Active participation for everyuser from anywhere and atanytime• Improves performance byreducing time needed inlegislative process• More mobile solution for theteleworking• Simple and flexiblecommunication Parliament-Government and Parliament-Official JournalQuality of services andcommunication• Shortens the learning curve for MPsand Government officials (processdriven)• Reduces process complexity• Measuring of the efficiency of thework• Warrants the process execution asto comply with the Rules ofProcedures• Great savings- decrease of the costsfor preparation and holding ofsessions• Saves money by eliminating paper inthe process of preparation andexecution of sessionsOperations• Internet Portals for informationshare• Enabling transparent citizen access• Increased transparency in theoperation and accessibility of thedecisions to the public• Enabling transformation of theinternal data sources intoinformation available for the citizens• Contribution to the reform of thepublic administration enablingaccumulation of a “legislativeknowledge/ resources”e-Democracy

Saving by Going Green"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."- ShakespeareBenefits of implementing Paperless Legislation Development andManagement Platform:• protect natural resources and ecosystems• greatly reduced environmental impact and costs• improved information access• in addition, the service to politicians is improved since the cases can bedistributed continuously as soon as they are ready• enhanced efficiency and flexibility• the administration saves time and expense by avoiding the need forprintouts, copies, packaging, postage and transport.Eliminates annual consumption of:• more than 40 million sheets of paper• more than 5.000 trees• over 500 mt of carbon dioxide.• saves 1 M EUR per year in printing costsAnalysis made for Republic of Macedoniafor 2009 using IDC Calculator

e-Parliament solution architectureWeb controls, Asynchronous JavaScript and XMLXML Web services, XML, XSD, XSLT, SOAP, WSEMicrosoft Office SystemMicrosoft Office SharePoint ServerMicrosoft SQL Server.NET Enterprise Services.NET FrameworkMessage Queuing ServicesCertificate Services (PKI)Internet Information ServicesClustering ServicesMicrosoft Windows ServerNetwork Load Balancing

CASE STUDY - Assembly of The Republic of MacedoniaI can only salute Macedonia for achieving such a success. As an MP I'm a little bitjealous, because you have done things we haven't even reached. For instance, I'm notable to follow past debates on video link to see whether I was good or not or to see theperformances of colleagues, he said, adding Macedonia as a younger state hadsurpassed those much older ones in the process.Lord Richard Best, British MP, Skopje, September 2009The e-Parliament was introduced which introduces a fully automatised legislative process from themoment of submission of the documents by the Government, and until their publishing in the Officialgazette.2009 Progress Report, Commission of The European Communities, Brussels, October 2009

Nextsensecontact@nextsense.com+389 2 3075 111Partizanski Odredi 621000 Skopje, MacedoniaIgor Andonovski, COO Nextsenseigor@nextsense.com+389 70 33 22 13Thank you for your attention