Parliament of Botswana - ICT Master Plan

Parliament is the third main pillar of democratic society, alongside the executive and the judiciary. As the legislative institution, parliament is an important cornerstone of democracy. All three pillars combine to play key roles in the promotion and enhancement of democracy and democratic values. Over the last two decades, increase in the number of democratic governments - many of them in developing countries - has reached an unprecedented peak. The number of parliaments has followed a similar trend.

Worldwide, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being widely deployed and used in various economic and public spheres. However, their use in parliaments is lagging, at least in relative terms. When ICTs are deployed in parliaments without a well-thought plan on how the institutions’ core functions will be implemented the effects can be detrimental to the intended objective. Technology by itself cannot provide any comparative advantage to parliaments as democratic institutions or to members of the parliament (MPs) as the representatives of their constituencies unless they are used to produce efficiencies in their work processes and therefore make the institution more effective.