Parliaments’ websites are a valuable means of information and communication with the public. This is explained by the data from the third Global Parliamentary Report produced by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which has just been published. On this subject, the report cites the Moroccan example and explains how parliamentary platforms exploiting the web make it possible to publicize the activities of Parliament and to facilitate and encourage consultation and participation.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has just released its third Global Parliamentary Report. A publication devoted to the need to involve the public in the activities of Parliament and published jointly with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). This report takes an in-depth look at the importance of the issue of public engagement and how parliaments around the world are connecting with the peoples they represent. It outlines trends and strategic priorities in this area and identifies several key points to ensure richer and deeper public engagement with parliament in the future. In this sense, citing the example of Morocco, one of the points on which the report focuses is the importance of parliamentary websites. These platforms which are a valuable means of information and communication with the public, it is underlined. They publicize the activities of Parliament and facilitate and encourage consultation and participation.
According to the Report, “websites continue to occupy a prominent place in the architecture of information, training, awareness and participation systems. They constitute both a place for the rapid and efficient presentation of parliamentary information and a point of contact with the public, encouraging their participation”, specifies the document. Thus, the IPU considers that the broadcasting of parliamentary debates on the Internet, live or delayed, is now commonplace in many countries. The data it provides show that for 87% of people consulted in the survey conducted by the Global Parliamentary Report, plenary or committee sessions, as well as audio and video materials can be viewed online, and 78% use the webcasting or live streaming over the Internet. Half of parliaments use digital tools specifically to reach young people, and 30% of the remaining parliaments plan to do so.
In this sense, the report cites the example of the Parliament of Morocco, which has launched the streaming of its plenary sessions and a large part of the work of its committees, the report indicates. “The video stream is linked to the parliamentary YouTube channel and the Facebook page, on which Parliament and parliamentarians actively seek to involve the population in their activities,” explains the IPU. In the same sense, she quotes in her report Aziz El Mouhib, in charge of information and communication in the Moroccan Parliament. The official explained in his intervention that the efforts to broaden the audience of the Parliament and to inform the population about its work are intended to contribute to strengthening the knowledge of the public and the interaction with it. “People are beginning to understand the importance of parliamentary work (…), that there are not only “traditional” plenary sessions (…) where MPs ask questions and the government answers, but also (…) that there is a lot of work at committee level,” he explained.
The Parliamentary Organization considers, within this framework, that effective public engagement requires a concerted effort by parliamentarians, parliamentary administrations and the community. Thus, his report offers practical advice, accompanied by a series of recommendations on the measures that can be taken to bring people and their parliaments closer together. “The ultimate objective is to diversify and enrich the methods and approaches implemented by parliaments to engage the public, so that people everywhere have more and richer opportunities to make their voices heard. voice in the decision-making processes that affect its existence,” say the report’s writers.
To this end, the document discusses multiple topics related to this objective. It thus deals with the importance of public engagement, which should make it possible to combat the mistrust of the population, calls to make parliament a central place, to protect the civic space for public debate, to ensure that everyone is heard, to allow access to more information and ideas and to bring about consensus on political issues.