Information has always played an extremely important role in human life. Over time, the role of information becomes more and more important. Today, information is on a par with such resources as human, financial and material. The production and consumption of information constitutes the necessary basis for the effective functioning and development of various spheres of public life.

In 2010, the Kyrgyz Republic declared and constitutionally formalized its aspiration to become a parliamentary democracy. The new constitution guarantees a multi-party composition of the Jogorku Kenesh and broad powers in the formation and control of the executive branch of government.

Building a strong and effective parliament requires the active involvement of the country's citizens in its work. This can be ensured only when voters have full information about the work of deputies, committees, and party factions.

The open data portal of the Jogorku Kenesh of the Kyrgyz Republic "This is your Parliament" contains data on the activities of deputies and adopted bills over the five years of the sixth convocation (2015-2020). The system allows you to make a selection according to various criteria and topics and analyze the information received. Thanks to the availability of information, citizens can make more balanced decisions when voting for a particular party and monitor the effectiveness of individual deputies. The portal is an additional resource to the official website of the Jogorku Kenesh.

The portal was created with the support of the Civil Initiatives Fund by the Crossroads Central Asia Public Fund in consortium with the DataLab Consulting Agency, which became the finalists of the competition for project grants held in 2019. The project is implemented within the framework of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) project "Strong parliamentary democracy with active participation of citizens" implemented by UNDP in the Kyrgyz Republic.

The project is aimed at increasing openness and accountability of the Parliament before the civil society in matters of decision making. The project aims to increase availability of technical and analytical tools and formats for providing information for monitoring and controlling the activities of the parliament members; expand access for citizens of Kyrgyzstan to information on the activities of deputies of the Parliament for informed choice in the next parliamentary elections; create and develop a public discourse on the importance of the Jogorku Kenesh work as an institution, as well as monitoring and control over it; and to increase interest in the activities of the parliamentary deputies and the level of awareness of the general public about the work of the Parliament, parties, factions, coalitions and adopted laws.

The project is based on the philosophy of “accessibility, mobility, innovation”, which means:

·        accessibility of language and content for a wide range of civil society,

·        a mobile nature of the platform that does not limit the circle of beneficiaries to a small group of already informed part of civil society activists, and

·        an innovative approach to the design and presentation of materials.

Portal "Parlament.kg" displays statistics on various topics:

·        activity of the deputy;

·        subject matter and frequency of proposed bills;

·        voting statistics;

·        comparative data on fractions;

·        comparison and correlation according to various criteria

·        and much more.

The portal publishes infographics and analytical materials that reveal the topic of parliamentarism and tell in detail about the activities of the deputies.

The portal of the British Parliament “They work for you” (at www.theyworkforyou.com) and the Swiss portal www.smartvote.ch were ideational inspirations for the project.