1. Interconnected Parliaments Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan Flavio Zeni UN-DESA - Nairobi Collaborative software and content development

2. Collaboration is....... SMART and GOOD our presentation assumes that!...after all we are here because in 1889 people saw the benefits of an inter-parliamentary collaboration and founded IPU...... UN are about collaboration... ICTs are about collaboration Collaboration... SMART and GOOD!

3. Please note... I have said that collaboration is SMART and GOOD I have NOT said or implied that collaboration is EASY, CHEAP or without PROBLEMS

4. Collaboration about... This presentation try to identify the types of collaborations that actually do exploit at best present technological environment Collaboration/sharing might also lead to cost-saving and synergies but the core rationale to adopt a collaborative software and content development is quality and sustainability for ALL Parliaments

5. Context: Parliaments have similar... similar inputs  speeches make by people (MPs, experts, etc.)‏  written documents (bill, questions, motions, etc. similar macro-processes (with different procedures)‏  plenary proceedings  committees proceedings  management of the flow of the above documents similar output  verbatim/minute/reports/agenda/etc.

6. Context: Similar needs but... Parliaments use “different” systems that have very similar features and functionality, in the best case. There are “affluent” parliaments that are likely (not guaranteed)‏ to have better system then less affluent parliaments There is growing digital divide among do and do-not parliaments

7. Context: ICTs uniqueness... ICTs are very reusable, very adaptable, very accessible and reproducible at very low marginal costs even more ICTs made “possible the impossible” the more “information services/systems” are used, the more diversified are the users - the better they become but also... very dynamic and in constant evolution

8. Why ICTs collaboration is not... We agree that collaboration is “smart” and “good” Parliaments share more then what they differentiate them ICTs tools and services to get better the more they are used/shared Still not many parliaments seem to appreciate/exploit the opportunity that collaboration and sharing of tools and content could brings in terms of quality - sustainability - bridging the Digital Divide Why?... you tell me!

9. Collaboration at what level? ICTs have brought about technical opportunities that are unprecedented in at least two areas:  Access to information  Collaboration removing time or geographical location limitations

10. PREVALENT approach  Access  access documents (HTML/PDF)‏ access to ONLY document as the users were “local” and speaking the very same language  Collaboration  Exchange e-mails and documents no exploitation of creation of quality and sustainability through collaboration and sharing of applications

11. ICTs opportunities potential  Access:  structure/semantics  across countries and languages  across media  Collaboration: Development and maintenance of  information services  Information system

12. Strategic GAP (needs)‏.... between global/continental needs of economic integration and harmonisation of legislation but locally focused solutions national/institution focussed

13. Strategic GAP (technologies)‏.... between technological opportunities semantic web – open/shareable solutions and practical approach  e-paper paradigm  no efforts to think “global-continental” in terms of standards, languages, search facilities, etc.  no exploitation of sustainability through collaboration

14. Technological opportunities Semantic web:  processing information according to its content (or meaning), and not only as a pure text by embedding computer readable specifications (XML/RDF/OWL) to make computer “understand” documents Open Source Development Model  develop once, together, for better and more sustainable tools for all parliaments

15. How did we in Africa fill the GAP... AKOMA NTOSO Parliamentary Document Open Access Infrastructure (XML/RDF/OWL)‏ BUNGENI Parliamentary and legislative Information System (based on Open Source application and tools)‏

16. Strategic choices: WHY? OPEN and COMMMON standards because they are the best way to address the political African agenda of economic integration of Africa and harmonisation of African legislation OPEN SOURCE and COMMON application because they are the best way to deliver high and sustainable quality information system and the critical mass to make this happen for ALL African Parliaments

17. AKOMA NTOSO (Architecture for Knowledge- Oriented Management of African Normative Texts using Open Standards and Ontologies)‏ is a set of common standards to produce, classify and share digital Parliamentary and Legislative documents Akoma Ntoso “Linked Hearts” – a symbol used by the Akan people of West Africa to represent understanding and agreement;

18. Document components Content  What exactly was written in the document (semantics)‏ Structure  How the content is organized Presentation  The typographical choices to present a document on screen or on paper.

19. After HTML... XML HTML helped make the Web a big success.. but it is just a publishing medium, it is constrained by its own simplicity and few rules not even strongly imposed A different format is required that provides Clear differentiation between visual aspect and actual meaning and presentation Strong syntactic rules heavily imposed to guarantee uniformity, homogeneity, sophisticated applications

20. XML describes structures.. Support for documents’ generation  Drafting activities, record keeping, translation into national languages, etc. Support for workflow  Management of documents across lifecycle, storage, security, timely involvement of relevant individuals and offices Support for citizens’ access  Multi-channel publication (on paper and on the web), search, classification, identification Further activities  Consolidation, version comparison, language synchronization, etc.

21. XML-AKOMA NTOSO “understands”.. HMTL … “presents“ … XML-Akoma Ntoso … “understands“ “Understand”... means to make accessible the structures and semantic components of parliamentary and legislative documents in a “machine readable” format to deliver high qualities information service

22. AKOMA NTOSO: purpose Define a common FORMAT for recording parliamentary activities Define a MODEL for data interchange and open access to parliamentary documents Define a common African parliamentary DATA schema Define a common African parliamentary METADATA schema and ontology Define a mechanism for citation and CROSS REFERENCING of documents between parliaments

23. AKOMA NTOSO: document types

25. AKOMA NTOSO: naming convention http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng@ http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng@2005-07-13 http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng@2007-05-03 http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng RSA Act n. 3 of the 12 April 2003  Original version  Amended version (expression) of 13 July 2005  Amended version (expression) of 3 May 2007  Current consolidated version (expression) URI NOT URL... IDENTIFICATION vs LOCATION

26. BUNGENI Parliamentary and legislative Information System Bungeni is an integrated suite of multi-platform architecture software applications, based on Open Source Software and Open Standards that automates the lifecycle of parliamentary documents

27. BUNGENI: features Bill Process Motions and Questions Debate Records Parliamentary Business Votes and Proceedings Virtual Workspace Citizens' interactivity and participation

28. The rationale for... The rationale for developing and distributing Bungeni under a Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) licence is to optimise its functionalities as far as possible as well as the geographical spread Please note that Regional, Provincial and also municipal assemblies are... “parliament-like” organisations that have very similar information needs/requirements

29. Development option: optimisation The optimization strategy consists of using a commoditised software (e.g. the Plone/Zope, OpenOffice.org)‏ as a basis for the developments and make the public sector solution on top of that commoditised software and limit the development to what is absolutely necessary This approach: contains investments, leverages the existing community creates fruitful synergies between public sector initiatives and “communities” increasing sustainability

30. EC Study: benefits Impact and return on investment of a FLOSS development project: scaling effect (dividing the investment and maintenance between a number of partners)‏ independence (avoiding long term vendor lock-in and proprietary formats)‏ better response to specific public sector needs developing local innovation spirit, employment and knowledge Study on the effect on the development of the information society of European public bodies making their own software available as Open Source (2007)‏

31. Synergies PloneGov aims to create a common platform of Plone-based e-Government initiatives in order to promote information and best practices benchmarking and software sharing” www.plonegov.org

32. 6 projects merged into PloneGov :

33. In summary... XML technologies and collaboration are SMART and GOOD if you are not using or thinking to use XML family of technologies collaborative modalities (many forms and ways)‏... you SHOULD!

34. Please note... I have NEVER said or implied that XML-technologies/collaboration are EASY, CHEAP or without PROBLEMES... we are NOT in the business of the “easy” things but the RIGHT things advanced information systems and services for ALL affluent and so so affluent parliaments

35. A quote from... The Mythical Man-Month of Fred Brooks, a classic in the software engineering field: "How does a project get to be a year late?...one day at a time"

36. Thank you i-nterconnect Parliaments to make them t o strengthen the role of African Parliaments in fostering Democracy and Good Governance in Africa Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan