The Challenges of e-Parliament Adoption and its Mitigation

Abstract

The Legislature a fundamental aspect of democratic governance in any nation provides an interactive, participatory and consultative platform for citizens’input in the decision‐making process by harnessing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools for improving parliamentary processes, services and functions. In this study, we investigate the extent of the application of ICT in parliament, particularly in emerging economies, making distinctions while identifying the most important requirements, technical challenges and proposing solutions to addressing the challenges. Some of the major challenges explored included limited resources available to parliaments, insufficient technical knowledge among legislative staff, little citizen engagement and lack of standardized software in addition to security issues. Solutions proposed include the introduction of s-parliament concept for a smarter parliament through better utilization of big data and Internet of Things (IoT), better document management and storage systems, use of XML-based standardized software, improved ICT security, increasing public trust and enhance citizen participation in the decisionmaking process.