INTER PARES | Parliaments in Partnership

With the pandemic showing no signs of waning, parliaments around the world are even more pressed to come up with innovative ideas to continue their work and fulfil their constitutional functions. Today, we explore whether virtual parliaments are here to stay and what can parliaments do to engage with citizens and respond to their needs in real time. We look at how this process can be shaped to transform into structural change that reinforces democratic governance in a tangible way. The episode features interviews with Dr Andy Williamson from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Mohamed Hussain, People's Majlis ICT Director and Hassan Ziyau, People's Majlis Director of Media and Communication, and Georgian Ghervasie, Director of Communications at the Romanian Senate and Carlo Papuc IT Director at the Romanian Senate. For more information on the programme, visit our website: www.inter-pares.eu The episode is hosted by Ingrid Walker, Programme Officer for INTER PARES at International IDEA.

In this first ever episode we wanted to start at the beginning and introduce the project ‘INTER PARES | Parliaments in Partnership – EU Global Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Parliaments' as we try to answer what may seem like very simple questions that are ultimately at the heart of parliamentary development: Why do parliaments matter and what can parliaments learn from one another? The episode features interviews with Gonzalo Jorro-Martinez, Policy Officer – Democracy – Parliaments and Political Parties, European Commission, Laura Thornton, Director of Global Programme, International IDEA, and Jonathan Murphy, Head of Programme, INTER PARES, International IDEA. For more information on the programme, visit our website: www.inter-pares.eu The episode is hosted by Ingrid Walker, Associate Programme Officer for INTER PARES at International IDEA.