The portal contains more than 110 structured parliamentary datasets on legislation, bills, plenary sessions, MPs, etc. Based on these data, one can create analytical products and web tools that provide information about the work of Parliament in the most accessible form.

 

During the presentation, Volodymyr Slyshynsky, Head of Parliament's Administration, a.i., reassured that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is currently preparing a Resolution to take measures on transparency of Parliament and the use of IT in this process, including the publication of more open parliamentary datasets.

 

Oleksandr Ryzhenko, Chairperson of the State Agency for e-Governance in Ukraine, said that Parliament's open data portal will be integrated with the unified state open data portal. He stressed that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is one of the best managers who publish datasets on the unified portal.

 

UNDP Expert on Democratic Governance Diana Zubko stressed that open data is an integral part of the Open Parliament Initiative, launched by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on 5 February 2016. In particular, many of the Open Parliament Action Plan's commitments are directly related to the provision and publication of information in open data format.

 

Nadiia Babynska from the OPORA Civic Network noted that data published on the portal will remain just numbers and a text, unless used by interested parties for analysing Parliament, developing software and applications. She urged civil society activists, journalists, analysts, and developers to use open parliamentary data.

 

Vadym Hudyma from the OPORA Civic Network announced the development of software for automatic upload of financial information and the agenda of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the portal, the improvement of the portal's functioning, and data cleaning. Also, OPORA plans to continue organise meetings of experts, analysts, developers, and representatives of the Verkhovna Rada's Computer Systems Office.

 

At the end of the discussion, Deputy Head of Parliament's Administration Mykola Shevchuk invited all participants to contribute to the improvement and openness of Parliament.

 

Currently, Verkhovna Rada's open data portal contains the following datasets in csv, json and xml formats:

• Members of Parliament (II - VIII convocations)
• Bills (III - VIII convocations)
• Legislature
• Plenary sessions (III - VIII convocations)
• Financial and economic information
• Organizational structure of Parliament's Administration

 

The publication of parliamentary information in open data format greatly simplifies the work of web developers and analysts. OPORA encourages them to use parliamentary data to create convenient and useful tools of social control and analysis of the main legislative body of the country.

 

Currently, OPORA supported by UNDP Ukraine plans to hold a series of presentations and workshops about benefits of the open data portal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, as well as a competition on analytical writing using open parliamentary data.

 

To send your feedback, please contact Nadiia Babynska at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

For further details, please contact Vadym Hudyma at +380 (68) 238 4430, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

This initiative is organised under the framework of Democratization, Human Rights and Civil Society Development Programme in Ukraine, implemented by UNDP and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.