Accra: Alhaji Adam Iddrisu, Editor of Debate Chamber Reporting for the Parliament of Ghana, has been elected as the President of the Commonwealth Hansard Editors Association-Africa Region (CHEA-AR) for a two-year term. The election concluded the Association’s 11th Biennial Conference in Accra, which ran from Monday, August 11, to Friday, August 15, 2025.
According to Ghana News Agency, Alhaji Iddrisu outlined plans to engage dormant legislative assemblies and invite others, such as the Republic of Togo, to join the association, even though Togo is part of the Commonwealth but not currently a member of CHEA-AR. He highlighted initiatives to revive inactive assemblies and noted Nigeria’s return after a decade-long absence. The Association’s constitution was amended to include regional parliaments like the East Africa Legislative Assembly and the South Africa Development Community Parliament Forum.
Iddrisu emphasized the importance of building capacity and sharing ideas among member Parliaments, including the ECOWAS Parliament and the Pan African Parliament. He also mentioned leveraging technology, including artificial intelligence, to enhance Hansard production and reporting.
The conference, themed ‘Charting the Future of Hansard: Embracing Technology and Innovation for Enhanced Parliamentary Reporting,’ gathered 63 editors from African parliaments to discuss best practices and challenges in parliamentary reporting. Key resolutions from the conference’s communiqu© urged countries to invest in digital infrastructure to support parliamentary operations and develop the capacities of Hansard officers in modern technologies.
The communiqu© also encouraged standardization in the production of Hansards and the adoption of appropriate technologies to improve records. The conference stressed the vital role of Hansard editors in shaping public understanding of parliamentary democracy and the need to leverage technology while preserving the continent’s unique parliamentary identity.
Speaker Bagbin remarked on the importance of accurate official records, which are produced by the Hansard department as a verbatim report of Parliamentary debates. The five-day CHEA-AR Conference, hosted by the Parliament of Ghana for the first time since 2014, was aimed at enhancing parliamentary reporting, promoting transparency, and improving accountability.
Participants from Ghana, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia, and Sierra Leone engaged in discussions on AI-assisted transcription, digital publishing, social media integration, and ethics in reporting. Notable presenters included Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, Professor Seidu Mahama Alidu, Dr. Rasheed Draman, and Mr. Sammy Obeng, who addressed topics such as the accessibility of Hansard and CSOs’ reliance on parliamentary records. Seventeen papers were slated, reflecting a diverse agenda bridging tradition and technology.