Hispanophone hub

As part of the World e-Parliament Conference 2021, new videos are available for some of our regional innovation hubs.

Since June, the Hispanophone hub has held four regional webinars. The knowledge shared by different hub members has provided valuable insights into the pandemic response of hispanophone parliaments.

• 19 June. This was the first meeting of the Hispanophone hub. It was organized by CIP and the Chilean Chamber of Deputies, with support from the National Democratic Institute. As host of the hub, the Chamber of Deputies introduced the hub concept. Participants included IT directors and senior information management staff from Spanish‑speaking parliaments in the region. CIP provided a global overview of the pandemic response. Individual parliaments then provided brief updates on the current situation and the technology solutions they were using for increased business continuity.
• 24 August. At the second hub meeting, Claudio Prieto (IT Director, National Assembly of Ecuador) presented a case study on the Assembly’s transition to increased remote working and virtual plenary sessions.
• 21 September. At the third meeting, Mr. Juan Manuel Cheppi (Secretary General, Chamber of Deputies of Argentina) described how his legislature had innovated in response to COVID‑19. He also discussed the pandemic’s impact on the parliamentary administration and longer‑term opportunities that the parliament’s innovative work had made possible. These opportunities were being considered for future strategic planning.
• 2 November. At the fourth meeting, Dr. Andy Williamson (speaking on behalf of CIP) gave the most recent global update on the pandemic response. The meeting focused on the Chamber of Deputies of Chile, its new practices and the significant effects that had been felt on daily parliamentary work and life. It also gave an insight into perspectives and considerations for the future.

The CIP Southern Africa and Hispanophone hubs each held virtual Zoom meetings with Member Parliaments[1] on 12 May and 19 June respectively. The meetings were attended by IT directors and senior IT staff and aimed at facilitating knowledge exchange between the parliaments of the respective regions and, in particular, concerning ongoing or planned ICT projects for remote working / meeting / voting solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its disruption of parliamentary activity. The Southern Africa meeting was organized by the hub host – the National Assembly of Zambia; it also saw the participation of the Secretary General of the SADC Parliamentary Forum Ms. Boemo Sekgoma. The Hispanophone hub meeting was organized by the Chamber of Deputies of Chile as hub host, with support from the IPU and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).

The meetings each featured a global overview presentation by the IPU Centre for Innovation in Parliament based on the ongoing survey which forms part of the IPU campaign Parliaments in a time of pandemic; followed by brief updates from the hub parliaments which provided more details on: the current status of parliamentary activity, including plenary and committee meetings; whether remote working and meeting solutions were deployed; how remote voting was handled; and how the legal framework for parliaments facilitated the above. The meetings were concluded with rich Q&A segments.

The Hub is working on establishing a dissemination and motivation strategy for the participation of Spanish-speaking Latin American parliaments, which is to result in the realization of a regional meeting (to be announced) to share experiences, in addition to analyzing and evaluating the Hispanophone Hub among regional peers.

The main functionalities of the Hub's online web portal have been defined. This will enable the publication of applications/software and good IT practices. User subscriptions have been added to distribute filtered information according to user profiles; and the beta version has been published on cip.camara.cl. Next steps include the finalization of the platform development and testing; collection of applications and information systems provided by the Chamber of Deputies of Chile to incorporate them into the new site - as part of the Hub’s vision to share information on ICT projects and solutions.

The implementation of the Hispanophone Hub portal is in its final stage. The portal's objective is to have a shared networking space that mainly allows Spanish-speaking Latin American parliaments to access technological solutions and good practices as a reference, or to adopt technological solutions implemented in other parliaments. This stage includes the aggregation and publication of contents, and the creation of user profiles for the member parliaments so that each can publish and share solutions and technological experiences. In addition, this portal will keep a record of "e-Parlament updates" to provide indicators over time about the state of technological modernization across the board. It is expected that by mid-November this portal will be available, which will be a contribution by and for regional parliaments.

The Chamber of Deputies of Chile took an active part in the meetings of the Centre for Innovation in Parliament during the 140^th IPU Assembly in Doha. The participation of the Chamber’s Honourable President Iván Flores García and Pro-Secretary Luis Rojas further underlined its support for the Centre and the Hispanophone Hub.

The ICT Department of the Chamber of Deputies is working towards finalization of its hub’s online exchange platform. This platform, with features such as knowledge exchange spaces and a forum environment, is expected to be launched during a kick-off meeting with representatives of other Spanish-speaking Latin American parliaments later this year. Also envisaged are discussions among senior ICT staff on information and knowledge sharing needs and requirements within the regional hub, and how this is to be realized through the platform and other working modalities. Representatives of the ICT Department of the Chamber also took part in the May 2019 meeting of the Open Data Hub in Brasilia to learn more about its projects and activities, and to seek synergies and areas of collaboration.

Image: Honourable President and the Pro-Secretary of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile at the 140^th IPU Assembly, Doha, April 2019. © Parliament of Chile

The IT department of the Chamber of Deputies is developing an online platform to facilitate knowledge exchange among parliaments within the hub. The Spanish-language platform is expected to go live in the second quarter of 2019.