Forward-thinking Parliaments across Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East, Europe and the region, have made great progress towards digital transformation to fully embrace the concept of e-Parliament, including delivering institutional improvements in legislative process, scrutiny and reporting, however, this is not sufficient to bring the real potential of ICT to Members of Parliament (MPs) and Parliaments without addressing the risk to Parliament’s digital resources in order to ensure digital resources remain authentic and accessible over time, which will significantly influence the empowerment and increased credibility of parliamentary institutions as well as the efficiency of e-Parliament
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have become essential tools in supporting the work of legislative bodies throughout the world. As they have grown in sophistication, ICT have acquired the necessary flexibility to assists Parliaments in delivering institutional improvements in terms of legislative process, scrutiny, reporting and technology enablement to modernize Parliament processes including replacing hard copies of bills and other documents provided to the members during the plenary session with tablets and laptops as a prelude to making Parliament a paperless chamber as well as meeting new and evolving needs of the Parliament with innovative budget amendments compilation system to resolve the challenges in tracking and managing Notices of Amendments efficiently. On the other hand, a matter of great concern pertaining to the longevity of all Parliaments’ digital resources, which is under continued cyber threat and the need to markedly improve cyber security preparedness. Without access to the trusted digital information it needs to preserve, neither Parliament will be able to support the work of its members or its administration, nor the requirements of the public for access to Parliamentary information wherever and whenever they want it in the future. As such, Parliament has to address these risks, including developing a roadmap towards implementation of a full digital preservation solution proportionate to Parliament's needs to carry out an efficient e-Parliament platform in order to improve representation, transparency, accountability, openness and effectiveness for the people they represent. All these challenges will be discussed thoroughly during the 2-day conference.