Description
Parliamentary watchdog is an under-developed area of civil society in the Czech Republic. Quality of media coverage of parliamentary activities is relatively low. The objective of the project is to strengthen parliamentary watchdog by continuing, expanding and connecting watchdog activities of the applicant and partners. Expanding is achieved by development of technologies for sharing information about legislators’ work (inventories of voting, widgets) and for detection of conflicts of interests and corruption (mashing of politicians’ and civil servants’ CVs and databases of public funding recipients and offshores). Connecting is achieved by merging data-oriented internship programs. The project has two target groups: the general public and the university students that will participate in the project as interns. The project includes a partnership with "Naši politici o. s." organization that will develop tools for detection of conflicts of interests and corruption.
Summary of project results
The project reacted to the fact that in Czech Republic, parliamentary watchdog is a chronically under-developed area. There is only a very few organizations focusing on this with a limited impact. The project helped to change the situation by continuing, expanding and linking various watchdog activities of the applicant and the partner, in their increasing professionalization and better presentation towards the public. It contributed by developing progressive technological tools for presentation of legislators' activities and detection of conflicts of interests and corruption risks based on analysis of open data.There were the following deliverables in the project: two inventories of votes containing the most important votes in the Parliament; two analyses of qualitative indicators of legislators' activity; two analyses of actual voting patterns in the parliament; adding a new system of parametrical searches to the NašiPolitici.cz website; developing a methodology of conflict interest detection based on links between legislators and recipients of public finances; conducting an analysis of conflicts of interests using this methodology; organizing three cycles of data-analytical internship programs for university students; creating a common database of internship students for the applicant and the partner; organizing three educational workshops for the students; integrating the internship program with formal education at five public universities. Thanks to the project, it is easier for the public to gain specific and relevant information necessary for holding their elected representatives accountable. This includes access to technological applications and other tools for detecting conflicts of interests and corruption. University students gained valuable experience, skills and knowledge via the program of internships. This makes them more likely to engage in watchdog activates in the future and improved their position in the labor market. Universities were able to broaden their portfolio of internship opportunities.
Summary of bilateral results