The IPU facilitates parliamentary diplomacy and empowers parliaments and parliamentarians to promote peace, democracy and sustainable development around the world.
Nearly every country in the world has some form of parliament. Parliamentary systems fall into two categories: bicameral and unicameral. Out of 190 national parliaments in the world, 78 are bicameral (156 chambers) and 112 are unicameral, making a total of 268 chambers of parliament with some 44,000 members of parliament. IPU membership is made up of 180 national parliaments
Throughout the year, the IPU and its Members organize many events for parliamentarians to exchange good practices, acquire the latest information and identify avenues for action.
The IPU has been collecting data on parliaments since its inception in 1889, including information on women’s participation in politics since 1945. In this section, discover the IPU's knowledge bank for and about parliaments.
Processing inputs from citizen engagement for committee work: Case studies from New Zealand and Scotland
Summary
10.00-11.00 CEST
As parliaments develop more channels for citizens to submit their views, many are then faced with the challenge of having to process large volumes of comments and submissions within what often are tight political timings and unhelpful processes. This is clearly a challenge faced by many parliaments so we have put together two IPU/IPEN Public Engagement Hub seminars on the topic to discuss different types of approaches.
In this first seminar, we will hear about how staff in the parliament of New Zealand have addressed this challenge by making sure citizens' evidence is considered by Members in committees. The focus will be on how the increasing number of submissions has changed how members get information from them, and proposes how members can engage with the data more directly.
This will be supplemented by a case study at the Scottish Parliament, which will outline how the Parliament analyses and processes mass citizens submissions. The focus will be on engagement for the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill and the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill which received over 4,000 responses from the public.