Section for Archives of Parliaments and Political Parties – SPP

The Section of Archives and Archivists of Parliaments and Political Parties (ICA/SPP) is an international forum of professionals who work at archives of parliaments, political parties and politicians. This Section was founded at the XII International Congress on Archives, held at Montreal in September 1992 and it was formally accepted in the ICA structure at the XIII International Congress on Archives (Beijing, September 1996). At present the SPP consists of approximately 140 members, representing 32 countries.

To carry out such a task, SPP focuses mainly on three activities, in order to ensure the preservation of the traditions of Parliaments and political parties, in different states and countries and to improve understanding of their identity and history. The aims of the SPP are laid down in the present regulations.

Since 1992 the SPP has organized several conferences to discuss issues which are matter not only to archivists of parliaments, political parties and politicians but also to archivists and archival institutions in general.

The most recent SPP-ICA Conference was held in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, from 30 May to 1 June 2023. This was the first face-to-face conference since the pandemic and the first in-person event for all SPP members since 2015. The subject of the conference was Audio-visual collections in Parliamentary and Political Archives.

The SPP General Assembly was also held in Israel in 2023.

Newsletters available in English and French.