The Working Group of the African Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations Network (APMON), met in Accra Ghana, between 28^th March and 1^st April 2022.

The Conference brought together leading parliamentary monitoring organisations (PMOs) from across Africa who represented the Eastern, Southern, and Western parts of the continent to deliberate on ways to effectively to mobilize PMOs and civil society organisations (CSOs) into a Community of Practice towards promoting parliamentary openness across the Continent.

In the meeting, the Working Group discussed a workplan for the year 2022; developed a regulatory framework to mobilize and sustain Networks of PMOs at the national and sub-regional levels, as well as deliberated on plans to launch an Open Parliament Index. The Index, which will be piloted in West Africa, will be published biennially to assess the level at which parliaments operate transparently, the extent to which they are accountable to citizens and the measures they put in place to enhance public participation in the work of Parliament.

Directorio Legislativo, a parliamentary monitoring organisation based in Argentina, participated in the meeting providing some technical support and sharing experience of Network building and index development.

The APMON will provide a platform to promote peer-to-peer learning and experience-sharing among PMOs towards promoting parliamentary openness across national, subnational and transnational legislative bodies.

The Working Group comprises representative organizations from Eastern, Southern and Western Africa.

Members of the Working Group are as follows:

1. Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica)
2. Mzalendo Trust, Kenya
3. Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana)
4. Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), South Africa
5. Pan African Parliament Civil Society Forum (PAP-CSO Forum), South Africa
6. African Parliamentary Press Network (APPN)

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Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica) is a parliamentary monitoring civil society organization working across Africa to promote Open Parliaments.

All questions relating to this release should be brought to the attention of Mr. Benjamin Opoku-Aryeh (Senior Programs Officer) via email on baryeh@parliamentafrica.com or phone at +23354 7018360