Bunge Online Parliamentary Forum

Practices & Experiences

Bunge Online Parliamentary Forum

Scope
National
Lead organization
Tangible Initiatives For Local Development Tanzania (TIFLD)
Country
United Republic of Tanzania
Region
Africa
SDGs
SDG icon SDG icon
Overview
The Bunge Online Parliamentary Forum is an online platform designed by volunteers in Tanzania and launched in November 2019. It aims to promote citizen oversight, issue-based accountability and more inclusive decision-making by providing a direct link between citizens and their Members of Parliament (MPs). Through the platform, citizens can raise and discuss issues directly with politicians. Volunteers designed, developed and maintain the platform and lead advocacy and awareness workshops with MPs, citizens and civil society organizations. In its first year of operation, over 17 MPs and 468 users have registered in the platform. By 2025 the project aims to register one million people and at least 60 MPs in Tanzania. TIFLD also hope to be able to extend the platform to Kenya and Uganda and eventually connect all three countries’ platforms to the East African Parliament.
SDG contribution highlights

Principles of transparency, civic participation, and accountable public institutions cut across SDG targets, in recognition that governments are more likely to be effective and credible if they are open to public consultation and oversight (SDG 16). The Bunge Online Parliamentary Forum aims to promote these principles by combining technology with volunteers’ skills and commitment to enable increased communication between citizens and politicians and create an accessible, alternative space for interaction beyond the media and other traditional forums. At least 57 issues have been posted and discussed on the Forum to date, including on infrastructure, access to clean water, press freedom, budget issues, health, education and technology. Both Members of the Parliament and citizens have interacted with the platform by either creating content or responding to the content created. No issues raised by the platform have yet been discussed in the Tanzanian parliament due to it being dissolved before a general election and not sitting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lessons learned and success factors
  • Inclusion is imperative for realising accountable and transparent governance. The Bunge Forum has created spaces for issues concerning women, youth and marginalized groups to be discussed and linked with a relevant Parliamentary committee. At the moment however, women only constitute 25% of users, with 60% male users and 14% with undisclosed gender. As a result the Forum volunteers aim to reach out specifically to women’s groups to raise awareness of the platform.
  • The initiative recognized that to be effective, volunteers had to identify and gain the trust of gatekeepers – known as ‘Bunge champions.’ Volunteers had one on one meetings with MPs and gained the endorsement of the Speaker of the parliament, leading more MPs to register and use the platform.
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