Democratic Governance : Parliamentary Development
Support to Parliaments is an essential part of Democratic Governance. UNDP currently supports over 65 parliaments around the world, from Algeria to Zimbabwe. The organization’s work aims at helping parliaments, thanks to its neutral stance, to have the capacity, resources and independence required to carry out their core functions effectively. UNDP supports the three functions of legislatures—oversight, law making and representation.
Today, thanks to the generous support of the Belgian government, UNDP initiates the third phase of the Global Programme for Parliamentary Strengthening (GPPS), main vehicle for UNDP support to parliaments and practice development.
GPPS III builds on two prior phases (GPPS I 1999-2003 and GPPS II 2004-2008) and has as overall objective the strengthening of parliaments’ capacity for deepening democracy and delivering human development with particular emphasis on Parliaments’ contribution to Government Effectiveness, MDGs and women’s political empowerment.
It seeks to accomplish the overall objective by linking national, regional and global approaches.
- at the global level, to provide leadership and advocacy in the field of parliamentary development, through establishment of benchmarks and standards for democratic parliaments or the creation of a Parliamentary Knowledge Portal to share Parliamentary development expertise,
- at regional level, to support South-South regional cooperation and promote regional knowledge development and exchanges in the Arab States and West and Central Africa.
- at national level, to support parliamentary development in Algeria, Benin, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda and document and share those experiences.
UNDP-EC Parliamentary Strengthening
At this time, the EC and UNDP are actively working to build up an integrated approach to parliamentary all around the world. Parliamentary development joint efforts between the EC and UNDP are expected, like for the EC-UNDP partnership on electoral assistance, to systematically improve results in term of assistance homogeneity and effectiveness.
In 2007 and 2008, the joint EC-UN partnership invested in national parliaments in a number of countries in Africa and Asia to strengthen their capacities to execute their mandate and exercise their oversight responsibilities. Since a few years UNDP has been increasingly collaborating with the European Commission in order to support the strengthening of the legislative assemblies in countries such as Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Malawi, Georgia, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Laos, and Vietnam.
The range of capacity support spans training to enhance legislative drafting skills, sharpening capacities of parliamentarians and parliamentary staff for policy and budget analysis, including gender-sensitive budgeting, and research and communication capabilities. Parliaments in some partner countries were trained on national budget formulation, in the analysis of resource allocation and budget outcomes, auditing and global politics and diplomacy. Similar assistance was provided on budget and financial issues to enhance the quality of parliamentary debate of the budget and its outcomes, as well as overall budget oversight. Political parties were also supported. For example, seminars for political parties imparted crucial skills in mobilisation, campaigning, and internal organisation, while aspiring parliamentary candidates, especially female candidates, were trained in campaign strategies, media outreach, fund raising, strategic communications and networking with partners.
In 2009, a joint Project to the Democratization Processes of the African Portuguese-Speaking Countries and Timor Leste through their Electoral Cycles will be launched. This project targets the promotion of a deeper consolidation of the democratic culture and institutions, including the Parliament as key democratic actor, and constitutes one of the entry points of this new path towards bigger convergences between the European Commission and UNDP in the parliamentary development area.
Did you know?
UNDP Parliamentary Reform project in Kyrgyzstan, supported by the European Commission has successfully collaborated with the Kyrgyz parliamentary authorities in:
- Ensuring public participation in the parliamentary process by improving parliamentary outreach and transparency;
- improving parliamentary oversight and institutionalizing its mechanisms;
- increasing capacity of legislators, parliamentary staff; civil servants and legal experts to analyze regulatory needs, draft policy responses and to draft and adopt laws;
- strengthening the institutional capacities of parliamentary administration to provide non-partisan and professional expertise.
In Niger, UNDP through the GPPS has accompanied Niger’s National Assembly in the longest period of uninterrupted democratic governance in the country’s history, marked by a major strengthening of parliamentary capacities, with parliament using its full constitutional powers of executive oversight. There have been many ‘firsts’:
- The High Court of Justice, a constitutional body made up of deputies responsible for trying former government ministers accused of corruption, has benefited from GPPS training support.
- Parliamentary commissions have traveled in the country’s vast interior to examine problems with state services.
- GPPS has supported the effective involvement in parliamentary life of the largest number of woman deputies ever elected.
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