Parliamentary Network (PN) Africa, has met with members from the Civil Society and a cross-section of journalists on parliamentary engagement and networking in Africa at the Country Lodge hotel at Hill Station, in Freetown-Sierra Leone.
The essence of the session was to build the capacity of journalists and civil society members amongst 15 West African countries on how to work better with their national parliaments, attract officials from Parliament, the media, and COS organizations.
According to the Director of PN Africa Sammy Obeng, the two main objectives of such an initiative are to facilitate networking among parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMO’s) in West Africa for experience sharing and collaboration dialogue.
He also noted that it is to strengthen parliamentary openness across national and regional legislature in West Africa through legislative transparency tools, under the open Parliament engagement and networking project they are currently running.
“Sierra Leone is the third country to experience such, after Ghana, and Liberia. If we work together as a network, we will be able to better coordinate our messaging, and Parliament will be able to coordinate its work better as well.”
The Director says collaboration is better for Parliamentary advocacy, as such technique has succeeded in other jurisdictions, and the people within those countries have benefited a lot.
Mr. Obeng maintained that it is a big step for CSO’s in Sierra Leone to have signed an MOU with Parliament. However, he stressed that such MOU should be taken further, as it should not just be limited to the signing stage.
He also disclosed that they consider the media as a very integral part of the work of CSO, and as a result of such relevance, they are considering capacitating the Press Gallery and also connecting them with their colleagues across the sub-region.
Such engagement started four years ago in Freetown with the engagement on parliamentary leadership, as it is not going to be a one-off event or engagement, according to Mr. Obeng.
In his presentation on CSO’s joint Communiqué with Parliament opportunity for greater partnership and open Parliament, the Executive Director, Institute for Governance Reform Andrew Lavalie said, it will be very important for CSO’s to have a desk in Parliament.
He noted that such a desk will also help to promote transparency and accountability in the law-making house and also increase the level of confidence from the side of the public.
Other speakers also made salient contributions during the engagement, which was ended with questions and answers from the side of the participants and the host.
The Executive Director of PN
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