This story originally appeared on OpeningParliament.org's blog.

Issues of legislative openness and citizen engagement were highlighted at the European and Asia Pacific regional meetings of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) last week, as NDI and partners in the Chilean Congress organized sessions of the Legislative Openness Working Group.

Somalia’s new federal government, formed in late 2012, faces significant challenges as it seeks to rebuild institutions, revive services for citizens, and deliver on the promise of democracy after two decades of conflict.

Waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever are endemic in Liberia and the country’s infant mortality rate is ranked as one of the highest in the world. A reason is that only 25 percent of Liberia’s four million people have access to safe drinking water, and only 14 percent have human waste collection and disposal services.

Though it has been more than 10 years since the country’s brutal civil war ended, much of the infrastructure that was destroyed has yet to be rebuilt, and citizens have little opportunity to communicate with their elected representatives about these issues.