e-Paliament : Global Center for ICT in Paliament launched

The Global Centre for Information and Communication Technologies in Parliament is a joint initiative of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and a group of national and regional parliaments launched in November 2005 on the occasion of WSIS in Tunis.

The Global Centre pursues two main objectives:

• to strengthen the role of parliaments in the promotion of the Information Society, through fostering ICT-related legislation, in light of the outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society;

• to promote the use of ICT as a means to modernize parliamentary processes, increase transparency, accountability and participation, and improve inter-parliamentary cooperation.

The Global Centre for ICT in Parliament intends to achieve these objectives by providing a framework for sharing knowledge, coordinating actions, providing technical assistance and pooling information and resources across legislatures around the world, regardless of their country’s economic development level.