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Openness of Ukrainian Parliament: the first steps towards implementation of the Work Plan

Civil Network OPORA has initiated and is monitoring the realization of Work Plan for Implementation of the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness, which was presented in Parliament on 5 February 2016 The organization is realizing a number of projects, aimed to increase the transparency and openness of parliamentary processes and activities of MPs.

On 18 March 2016, the first meeting of the Monitoring Committee on Realization of the Work Plan. Olha Aivazovska and Nadiia Babynska presented the results of OPORA's efforts towards parliamentary openness, and suggested the first steps in this direction (openness of financial information, manning table, publication of information about MPs, their assistants etc.). The next meeting of the Monitoring Committee is scheduled for 13 April 2016.

OPORA has been monitoring the Parliament since 2013, and all the gathered data is available at RADA website. OPORA provides accessible and well-structured information about MPs (example). The site also contains information about majoritarian MPs, track speeches of MPs, joint voting etc. Civil Network OPORA makes systematic analyses of majoritarian MPs' activities. In 2016, OPORA conducts monitoring in 105 electoral constituencies of 24 Ukrainian oblasts and Kyiv city under USAID's Accountability, Responsibility, and Democratic Parliamentary Representation (RADA) Program, supported by the Eastern European Fund. Thanks to the project implementation, citizens will get information about public receptions of MPs, their activities, voter engagement, activeness in the districts etc..

Besides that, OPORA makes regular analyses of VRU committees' transparency. On 11 March 2016, representatives of Civil Network OPORA presented the research results on a meeting with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Volodymyr Hroisman, and discussed the issues related to transparency and openness of the Parliament and its separate institutions, as well as development and introduction of the Open Data Portal of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Based on the meeting results, Volodymyr Hroisman charged the Parliament's Apparatus to resolve the certain problems in communication between OPORA and the Parliament on the way to reform.

It should be mentioned that OPORA sent the abovementioned suggestions, particularly development of a new website of the Parliament, Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, openness of financial and administrative information, proactive publication of information in open data format, in an official letter to the Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada in March 2016.

Civil Network OPORA is responsible for subparagraph 2.3 “Some aspects of citizen access to public information” of paragraph “Citizen involvement in parliamentary processes” of the Work Plan, particularly creation of places to work with documents. Olha Aivazovska made the abovementioned commitment of the Parliament public when representatives of Civil Network OPORA met Chairman of the VRU and leaders of the VRU Apparatus on 11 March 2016. Volodymyr Hroisman charged structural subdivisions of the VRU to publish the list of such places as soon as possible (commitments under the Work Plan – before the end of the first quarter of 2016). On 5 April, the abovementioned information was published on official web site of the Verkhovna Rada.

Paragraph “Reporting” requires publication of all financial documents of the Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Civil Network OPORA is also focused on subparagraphs 3.1 and 3.2 of this paragraph. This question was discussed on the meeting, and not once. Thus, Chairman of the VRU and leadership of the Apparatus affirmed that they are absolutely ready to open the data. On 18 March, this issue was also stressed during a meeting of the Monitoring Committee. Civil Network OPORA has also met with leadership of the Affairs Department and other structural subdivisions of the Apparatus concerning publication of this information in a format, suitable for search engines. A part of financial information is now published on a beta version of the Open Data Portal of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in open data format.

Paragraph “Technologies and innovations” provides publication of data sets in open data format on websites of the Parliament (sub-paragraph 4.4). Since November 2015, Civil Network OPORA has been realizing the project Open Data Portal of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine under the UNDP, which is supposed to contain basic data sets. On 5 February 2016, Civil Network OPORA, Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada and State Agency on Electronic Governance signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on development of the Portal. We developed a statement of work and determined a platform together with the Computerized Systems Department of the Apparatus. Information about MPs, draft laws, financial and administrative data shall be published in full volume and in a machine readable format. Basic version of the website has the following sections: Regulatory and legislative framework of Ukraine, Draft laws, Plenary sittings, Members of Parliament. We have also planned a presentation of the Portal with basic data sets. Civil Network OPORA has developed an approximate list of prioritized data sets with schedule of their publication on the Portal. Thus, basic data sets shall be supplemented with agenda items, details about MPs, sets of data about committees, financial, administrative information, electronic petitions etc..

Details: Nadiia Babynska (Virna) 050 210 4847, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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