Introduction

Unit 7 is devoted to parliamentary transparency, encouraging participation and promoting constituency outreach. As representatives, MPs require a system that allows concerns and aspirations of their constituents to be reflected in decision-making and laws governing the country. The unit looks at some of the suggested processes for achieving transparency, promoting participation and expanding outreach through partnerships with civil society.

Embodied in the oversight function of parliaments is the need for accountability and transparency and with it the drive to ensure that parliamentary democracy is as open, and governed by the rule of law as possible. With transparency invokes the need to reach out to constituents and that, in itself, is a mark of participation on the part of the broad masses of the people on whose behalf policy decisions are taken in parliament.

In this unit an attempt is made to explain the concepts of transparency and the key issues involved with parliamentary transparency, access to information, as well as the relationship between transparency and accountability. The units also discusses the methods of outreach open to parliamentarians, the cycle of decision-making, the transparency of parliamentary committees and the mechanisms involved.