A conference on 'Informing Democracy: Building Capacity to Meet Parliamentarians' Information and Knowledge Needs', organised jointly by the IFLA Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments in cooperation with the IPU and ASGP, will be held in Geneva on Thursday 16 October 2008. Information about the conference is available on the 'Upcoming Meeting' page.
The next meeting of the ASGP will take place in Geneva between 13th and 16th October. There will be debates and communications on a number of interesting topics relating to parliamentary practice. Papers are available on the 'Upcoming Meeting' page. Papers from the ASGP's highly successful meeting in Cape Town in April are available on the 'Past Meetings' page.
On Thursday 28 February the President of the ASGP visited New York for the Second meeting of the Board of the Global Centre for ICT in parliament, in his capacity as advisor to the board.
1. I am writing to you because the subscription owed by your parliamentary chamber is overdue. The Executive Committee agreed at the Geneva session in October 2007 that I should write to all members of the ASGP whose subscriptions had not been received for more than two years. Each parliamentary chamber is responsible for its own costs.
1. The ASGP met for its autumn session in Geneva between 8-10 October. The first day was devoted to a specific theme – Communication and Parliament. Mr Gherardo CASINI (Global Centre of Information and Communication Technologies in Parliament), Mr Boris BERGANT and Mr Peter VICKERS (European Broadcasting Union, EBU) made presentations. A presentation by our colleague Mr Xavier ROQUES on “Parliament and Media” was postponed to our meeting in Cape Town. During the ASGP meeting, we had some interesting communications and discussions from Mr Edouard NDUWIMANA (Burundi), Mr Oleksiy SYDORENKO (Ukraine), Mr Tae-Rang KIM (Republic of Korea), Mr Alain DELCAMP (France), Mr Carlos HOFFMANN CONTRERAS (Chile), Mr Samuel Waweru NDINDIRI, (Kenya), Mr Ian HARRIS (Australia), Mr Brissi Lucas GUEHI (Côte d’Ivoire), Mr Oum SARITH (Cambodia) and Mr N.C. JOSHI, Acting Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha (India). Mr Martin CHUNGONG gave a presentation on the recent activities of the IPU. Mr Zingile A. DINGANI presented the organization of the next session (Spring 2008). At the session in Geneva, 24 new members were accepted. They are all listed on the website.
Following the presentation by Mr Gherardo Casini of the Global Centre of Information and Communication Technologies in Parliament, the questionnaire referred to by him is available at http://www.ictparliament.org/globalsurvey/
The meeting in Geneva is approaching and since our latest meeting in Bali I have been involved in a number of issues that I would like to tell you about in this letter. On the ASGP website you can find a convocation letter to the Geneva meeting and miscellaneous information including a draft agenda, etc.
1. I participated on 22 February in the conference “Public Service Broadcasting & Parliaments” in Brussels. The conference was organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) with the support of the EU Parliament's Audiovisual Services. For more information, see the ASGP website.
The new website of the ASGP has been launched on http://www.asgp.info/. The engagement of Ian Harris a Former President of the ASGP in setting up a working website for the ASGP and improving communication between members has been very valuable. The intention in setting up the new website has been to make use of all that has been done before but to modernise the ASGP website. This is an important step in working towards developing the Association's working methods. It is hoped that the new website can serve as an important tool for communication within the ASGP. The intention is also to raise significantly the level of service regarding the publication and updating of information on the website. The members of the Association should be able as a matter of course to seek information from the website on previous and future meetings, published communications and other events of relevance. The website is also intended to have a high degree of interactivity. It should be possible, for example, to use the website to send questions to colleagues within the organisation.
