Women and Democracy Initiative launches ParlyBeat
ParlyBeat is aiming to expand the range of people who are reached with news and information regarding the legislatures, ParlyBeat makes links between the policy and oversight processes taking place in committees in the legislatures and the lived realities of ordinary people. Through this it aims to increase public scrutiny of the performance of the legislatures, increase access to information on key social justice issues, and also promote increased engagement by a broader range of the public with the work of legislatures.
The publication Includes news analysis and feature articles as well as reflections from Parliament Watch members and relevant information to increase knowledge of and access to the legislatures. The newsletter’s content can be republished by media outlets subject to certain conditions of a creative commons licence.
ParlyBeat will be published every second Thursday, and people can subscribe via email, or follow ParlyBeat on Facebook and Twitter.
Click here to View ParlyBeat Content
About the Women and Democracy Initiative
Based at the Dullah Omar Institute at the University of the Western Cape, the Women and Democracy Initiative takes an intersectional feminist approach to strengthening deliberative democracy in South Africa. The WDI focuses particularly on promoting and defending the intended role of the legislatures within South Africa’s Constitutional democracy. We focus as much on the politics and questions of democracy that underpin the processes through which rights are defined in the framework and realised as we do on the substance of the rights. The WDI relies strongly on working in alliances, we seek to bring a feminist and deliberative approach to existing civil society alliances that work on promoting gender and women’s rights or that work more broadly to promote open democracy.
About Parliament Watch
Parliament Watch is a collective of 11 organisations working towards the advancement of social justice, the realisation of human rights, and strong constitutional democracy in South Africa. Collaborators include the Black Sash, Dullah Omar Institute, UWC, Equal Education Law Centre, Heinrich Boell Foundation, Parliamentary Monitoring Group, Public Service Accountability Monitor, The Right to Know Campaign, Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Task force, Social Change Assistance Trust; Social Justice Coalition, and Women on Farms Project. We undertake joint activities to increase scrutiny of Parliament and provincial legislatures and their committees. These activities are aimed at increasing public awareness of the role and mandate of legislatures and of elected representatives, at increasing the claims made on legislatures by the public and civil society, and ultimately on increasing their accountability to the public. The organisations that form Parliament Watch work in different ways towards addressing many of the systemic issues that we believe lie behind the persistent social justice struggles within South African society. Our organisations also work to strengthen South Africa’s democracy, seeking to increase transparency, access to information, public agency and participation.