In December 2020, INTER PARES, an EU-financed project implemented by International IDEA, launched two new parliamentary e-courses on AGORA—the only global online knowledge hub on parliamentary development—on parliamentary oversight, and parliaments and climate change. Six additional e-learning courses will be rolled out in 2021. Building on its past success as a platform with a transcontinental reach, AGORA is also launching versions in Arabic, French, Portuguese and Spanish in 2021. AGORA will further expand the platform in 2021 by including themes related to parliamentary development.
AGORA partners have agreed that the first online global Parliamentary Development Community of Practice will be organized in early 2021. The conference will broaden participation beyond long-time parliamentary development organizations to engage the international development units of national parliaments, as well as scholars working on parliamentary development topics.
The renewal and relaunch of AGORA has therefore not only enhanced this valued parliamentary development resource. It has also enabled the portal to serve as a platform for a revitalized community of practice, thus enabling innovation, collaboration and learning to benefit parliaments and strengthen democracy around the world.
There were over 105,000 users in the first 10 months of 2020, compared with 94,866 during the whole year of 2019.