Conceptualization of e-parliament in promoting e-democracy: Prospects for the SADC region

With the SADC e-Parliamentary Forum providing a good institutional framework for advancing the e-parliament agenda, an enabling environment is being created for the proliferation e-parliament applications in the SADC region. This chapter presents an exploratory study of the current status of e-parliament adoption in the SADC region. It discusses the different visible interventions that have been put in place at both the policy and implementation level. The chapter posits that although some appropriate interventions to encourage proliferation of e-parliament in the SADC region have been put in place, still a lot more has to be done in this agenda. Further, it argues that the implementation of e-parliament, despite presenting an opportunity for SADC countries to participate in the global knowledge economies, further secludes marginalized individuals who may not have the requisite ICT platforms and/or gadgets to participate in e-parliament. A comparative study of SADC and Brazil is also presented.