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UNDP’s Contribution
SURF - West Africa
Magdy Martinez-Soliman
Governance Policy Advisor
Summary
1. Introduction
2. Democracy and Development
3. Democracy in progress the world over
4. Public Consultations : the Representation
5. The Political Responsibility of the Executive before the Parliament
6. Enacting Law
7. The rights and duties of the Opposition
8. Parliaments and Poverty Alleviation
9. The Institutional Development of Parliaments and its Partners
10. Conclusions and recommendations
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The author would like to express his many thanks to Mrs. Nancy Taylor, UNDP’s consultant, with whom he participated in the evaluation of the UNDP’s Global Programme for Parliamentary Strengthening. A good number of facts and data were drawn, and some observations inspired, from her evaluation report. This acknowledgement extends to the entire team of parliamentary advisers of the UNDP’s Headquarters at BDP, IDG, namely Ms. Randi Davis, Ms. Jennifer Topping and Mr. Thomas Huyghebaert, as well as to SURF’s ICTD Policy Adviser for Africa, Mr. Pierre Dandjinou, for his thorough knowledge and his ever inspiring contributions on E-Parliaments.
The content of this document is not necessarily shared by either the UNDP, its Executive Council and Member States or the United Nations. The copyright of this document belong to the UNDP, inclusive of the reprint rights, translating into other languages, using thereof on any type of publication, whether written or electronic.
Good Governance and Development are entwined. Parliamentary Democracy is the representational dimension of good governance. The question arises as to whether or not Africa is progressing in terms of democratization despite its inadequate advancement in terms of economic development. The equation according to which democratic development influences economic development is true but not automatic. The “Governance Crisis” has devastating impacts on the most vulnerable strata of the citizenry. Democracy has extraordinarily positive effects on development ; moreover, it is an end in itself. In the era of globalization, Politics has become as important as the Economy towards ensuring the development of a country.
Today, relatively to the 80s’, the number of countries organizing free, fair and pluralistic elections has doubled, totaling 140 countries around the world. In fact there remain only thirty dictatorships in the world. Under democracy, the rights to private property ownership and investments are better secured. When democracy sustains economic growth, the result is social stability. Similarly, in democratic countries people live longer, the infant mortality rate is lower and women are burdened with fewer children. The rationale behind parliamentary reform is to continue reinforcing democratic institutions to enable them control governments’ actions more effectively, to better enact laws applicable to all and to better represent the electorate.
The first duty of the Parliament is to represent the Nation. Representing implies at least three actions : explaining what the parliament is doing, what the government is proposing to the parliament, what the member of parliament is voting for, and why; and understanding the people’s yearning. Very much often, it is presumed that citizens know Parliament. Nothing is less certain. Several initiatives are attempting to make the Parliament known to the citizens, make it accessible to the media while ensuring or promoting transparency. Other political decisions have transformed the parliament, an institution usually closed to the public, into a forum which is not only open but also functional and even comfortable for the journalists’ work. The drive towards open-door policy, transparency and information is beneficial both for parliament and government itself, resulting in “win-win situation” and making the Parliament an institution which is more accessible and understandable.
Many parliaments have developed public consultation mechanisms which enable their members to promote dialogue with the civil society. This process is not only feasible, but even more desirable in as much as it produces parliamentary consensus along with a prestigious image for the representational body. The experience of Niger, globally considered, remains a best practice of consultation between the parliament and the people. African Members of Parliament urgently need public relations infrastructure in their constituencies. A good number of African Parliaments do not understand the parliamentary office as a full time professional job, African parliamentarians are among the less adequately remunerated in the world, and African parliamentary administrative bodies are generally understaffed, ill-skilled and poorly equipped.
The oversight function of most African parliaments is minimized. The parliamentary control is of special importance with regard to budget. UNACEB’s experiences in Benin, the African Regional Initiative on Budget and the Uganda gender budget analysis process are, for now, pioneer examples in this area and exceptions which confirm a general weakness in the parliamentary control system. The institutional weakness of parliaments, whose administrative bodies employ, at best, a few dozens of professionals, and of their Committees, prevents them from effectively control the performance of a government employing thousands of civil servants. The weakness or lack of cooperation on the part of auxiliary institutions (Auditors, Comptrollers, Ombudsmen) inhibits the parliament’s timely participation in formulating, executing and evaluating public policies.
One of the most innovating budgetary analyses is the gender budget analysis. It includes the study of revenues generated by a country’s female population, alongside girls’ and women’s needs when preparing public expenditure. Only 14% of parliamentarians in the world are women. Since 1995, within just 7 years, the quota system has enabled the increase of women political participation in 103 parliaments around the world (there are 140). But, beyond quantity and quotas, the next step is the quality of women’s political and parliamentary participation. By world classification, under Africa heading, only South Africa and Mozambique are found among the 15 leading parliaments that have scored above 30% women’s representation.
The most familiar example of non budgetary parliamentary control of the government is the novelty of oral questions to the head of government. This Westminster tradition quickly found its way into most European, Asian and Latin American countries. But in Africa, it has not had the same success, despite some exceptions. From observation, there is also a liberalization trend in the creation of parliamentary enquiry committees to handle cases of serious corruption allegations.
The success of the legislative procedure is much less dependent on technical capabilities than assumed, but rather on the management of the parliamentary agenda, on time allotted to Assemblies to analyse texts, on the strength and authority of parliamentary committees and on the latter’s capacity to form an opinion based on the reactions from the sectors concerned by the proposed bills. Sometimes the Rules of Procedure provide an excellent support which facilitates the relevant task, but sometimes they represent an obstacle which makes the task more arduous. Consequently, reforming the relevant rules becomes an essential means of ensuring an efficient legislative performance.
The Guidelines on the Opposition in Parliament has become a classic and a noteworthy African contribution to the world’s parliamentary development. The opposition is defined as a necessary and indispensable machinery to democracy, its main function being to constitute a credible alternative to the existing majority and to participate in controlling and criticizing (where appropriate) government’s action in order to ensure transparency, integrity and efficiency. According to these guidelines, the opposition too has its duties, namely that of preparing itself, in a responsible manner, towards assuming power to which it aspires. The opposition’s responsibility is demonstrated by its acting in the higher interest of the nation. Therein lies the concept of the opposition’s parliamentary loyalty, avoiding to unnecessarily collapse government’s action, trivialize the parliamentary institution and depreciate the democratic system through simple confrontation of personal ambitions and a tone, language or practice that denies parliamentary courtesy.
The parliaments’ involvement in the production and discussion of poverty alleviation strategies is felt at the level of the State’s budget analysis. The parliamentary capability is focused on overseeing governmental commitments to poverty alleviation. The UNDP and the World Bank Institute have assisted parliaments in strengthening their skills to analyse PRSPs and their partnership with the civil society in this process. It is increasingly frequent for PRSPs to be tabled before Parliaments for deliberation and approval : African governments have become more sensitive to the fact that no effort is too much in this political and social challenge, and that the parliament cannot be kept in the dark when an issue of national interest of such a magnitude is introduced into the political and institutional arena. Thanks to the direct relationship between the set objectives and budgetary monitoring, it is possible to impart a lesser technical and more human aspect to the financial control function. Finally, this process offers a meeting ground between the parliament and the government, the local governments and the civil society.
The parliaments’ institutional development actions are linked to the strengthening of the administrative system and bodies of the parliament, secretariats, technical and material means with which the MPs perform their assignment. The best known instrument for effectively target the appropriate reforms has been, in the recent past, the needs analysis. Such an analysis has been successfully carried out in many parliaments: since 1999 a thorough study per quarter in the world, and more than two per year in Africa, have been produced. Many partners have associated their expertise with Southern parliaments’ development, starting with specialized NGOs and ending with donor agencies themselves.
To talk about Parliamentary Reform and Good Governance is to talk about Democracy, or, to be more specific, about representative democracy, separation of powers and electoral reform. In fact, many aspects of good governance are closely related. The first question that arises is, perhaps , whether in Africa, we are moving forward in terms of democratization and parliamentary reform, or we are moving backward just like in the areas of poverty, education and health. In fact, if we move backward politically and socially at a time, it would simply be concluded that authoritarianism leads to stagnant levels of development or its decline. Teaming democracy up with development is an duty for UNDP, the United Nations’ Agency dealing both with poverty and freedom, and for which political progresses is an end in themselves as well as a means of attaining the major Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015. As stated by UN Secretary General, Mr. Koffi Annan, in an address to the Presidents (Speakers) of Parliaments who met in New York on the eve of the Millennium Summit, « without good governance, without the Rule of Law, without a predictable administration, without a legitimate power and a responsible legislative body; no amount of financial aid or support will put us on the path to prosperity. »
Our wish is that the more democracy and good governance we have, the more human development and people’s well-being there should be. That would be the perfect equation which would permit the proscription of authoritarianism which is synonymous to more poverty and misery. Unfortunately, in reality, things are not as simple as that. While democracy progresses in Africa, poverty, AIDS and debt are likewise progressing. While elections are getting many and, with some exceptions, increasingly free, school enrolment rates do not progress, particularly among young girls. While multi-party systems are an given reality of the African political scene, while political power alternates without traumatism, while corruption recedes and Parliaments consolidate themselves, access to drinkable water improves only very slowly, with malaria and tuberculosis, thought to have disappeared forever, moving on to kill three millions human beings annually. These two diseases would have killed 340 persons in Africa within the time span of this round table. At this rate, we would need 130 years to attain the realization of the objective we all yearn for within the next decade ! The political development is thus the forgotten dimension of human development. However, democracy is neither a luxury nor a panacea for developing countries. In fact, it is the only political regime that is compatible with human development in its strict meaning.
Does that mean that democracy has not worked as a political system able to provide the social services for which the people yearn? Quite the contrary. To laud the merit of democracy is easier than we think. Its opposite, the “Governance Crisis”, leads to devastating impacts on the most vulnerable strata of the citizenry: rampaging and omnipresent corruption, along with inefficient public services are the first symptoms. For the common man, governance crisis is equated with schools without teachers, courts without justice and civil servants asking for undue gratification at every opportunity. Bankrupt institutions, including parliaments, cause more harm to the poor and vulnerable citizens than to any other person else. According to the saying of the late German Chancellor, Mr. Brandt, « Only the richest citizens can afford to dispense themselves of the State. As for others, we need the State to achieve equity.” Just an example from the justice sector: the citizens all over the world – and not only the poor – sometimes have the impression that the judiciary is more diligent when dealing with crimes committed by the poor than when the poor are the victims of crimes. Similarly, in the West, the citizens accuse international financial institutions of lack of legitimacy, and consider that they do not represent their interests (see the most justified elements of the anti-globalization protest); in the South, citizens are often disappointed by the lack of representative depth of national institutions. For instance, how can we explain the African citizens’ feeling, at times, that the government, i.e. the executive, is seen as more democratic and closer to them than the parliament is, despite the latter being an elected body? This democratic legitimacy should at least be shared!
Within less than two decades, it has been proven that the relationship between democracy and development is strong but not automatic, and that democracy has an extraordinarily positive impact on development. Moreover, it is an end in itself, never a matter of do or die, all or nothing, but rather a matter of grades, intensity and depth. No society is ever fully democratic, just as it is never absolutely developed. Elections, for example, which give birth to parliament, are the embodiment of parliamentary legitimacy. Free elections equal representative parliament. Elections marred by fraud equal illegitimate parliament and usurped power. In fact, elections are the paradigm of responsibility before the people as well as of delegation of power by the people. When a government does not measure up to the people’s expectation, it can be sacked by the people. There is no other type of accountability as direct as the one based on democracy, nor is there any other more egalitarian form of participation. But it would be a mistake intermingling elections, the way, and democracy, the end: we still need the vehicle for the journey to destination, the vehicle of performing democratic institutions, prominent amongst which are the Parliament and the parliamentarians. In the era of globalization, politics has become as important as Economy towards ensuring a country’s development. To be sure, ask the Argentineans.
Though, during the second half of the 1st century, 46 democratic governments in the world were replaced by force through a military coup. There were 13 military coups in Sub-Saharan Africa during the ‘90s. Despite of that, 40 military regimes were replaced through a democratic transition and by a parliamentary form of government since the 80s’. In fact there only remain 30 dictatorships in the world. Today, the number of countries organizing free and pluralistic elections have doubled, altogether 140 countries in the world. Why then are we not satisfied ? Perhaps because, as M. Malloch-Brown, the UNDP Administrator, puts it, only 60% of governments that emanated from those free elections can be considered fully democratic. “Too many political leaders behave as if democracy stops at the conclusion of electoral process – M. Malloch-Brown went on - they ignore their opponents as well as the citizens who voted them into power, particularly the poorest of them, and override both the legislature and the judiciary which are made powerless..” When we think of the Arab World, democracy is still a process to be implemented, considering for instance that some of the Arab countries deny half of their population the right to vote. Elsewhere in the world, the concern is how to make democratic institutions work, particularly the Parliament. This is the rationale behind the parliamentary reform, from Westminster to Pretoria, from Bourbon Palace to Porto Novo. Hence, the talk about the third wave of democratization ; the first having given birth to the oldest democracies in the West, while the second shook the ‘80s the world over and, of course, Africa as well.
I remember a very popular thesis among African and Latin American intellectuals, when we were studying Constitutional Law, which was considered a luxury of rich countries. We were then raising a question, sincerely speaking, as to whether or not some countries were ready for democracy, and whether or not they, so to say, had the means therefore. I think that Nobel Price Award Amartya Sen has answered the question on behalf of us all: “We should not ask whether or not a country is ready for democracy, rather any country must get ready through democracy”.
Now, what is the democratic system doing better than the other political regimes? Why are we defending the Parliaments and want to improve them by ourselves, taking into consideration the inherent cost ? Shall we not be more effective if we forget about the National Assemblies and simply give Presidents free hands to rule their countries? We could envisage a non-parliamentary presidential democratic system, why not? Well, here are some answers on the benefits of democracy: within thirty years, the free press has doubled, the number of newspapers copies as well, in the democratic countries of Africa, rising from 29 to 60 copies per day and per 1000 inhabitants. Democracy protects, in a better way, the right to private property and investments, which are absolutely essential to the economic growth; it lowers birth rate at all levels of revenue groups, and increases women’s well-being; as far back as from 1950, whenever democracy was combined with economic growth, the result was social stability; when we compare countries with the same level of development, it would be observed that in the democratic one people live longer, infant mortality rate is lower and women have fewer children.
It would be easy to give a rosy picture of democratic systems. Democracy and Parliaments answer the question as to how to control the intrinsic social conflicts that are common to any human society in a peaceful and responsible manner, and how to make governments accountable before the electorate. Democracy and Parliaments do not constitute the magic wand that transforms poverty into prosperity. But they are first and foremost an end in itself, for, according to the poet, “man does not live on bread alone but also on roses.” Moreover, they are an asset in the fight against poverty. Lastly, they are more a process than an end. Therein lies the rationale behind the parliamentary reform: to keep on consolidating the democratic institutions in order to better control governments, to adequately enact laws binding on all of us, and better represent the citizenry who elected us.
First among the responsibilities of any Parliament is to represent the Nation. First among the duties of any parliamentarian is to represent his or her constituency, whether the latter is a province, as in most countries, or the whole country as in other constitutional provisions. Representing entails at least three meanings: explaining what parliament does, what government proposes to parliament, what the member of parliament votes for and why; and understanding what the people yearns for.
Most often , it is presumed that, since the citizens vote at legislative elections and know that they have sent a member of parliament to the National Assembly to represent them, they should be aware of what this parliamentarian is doing when he sits in Parliament. Yet another risky assumption. Lastly, it is assumed that in countries where it is happily the custom to admit cameramen and microphones into the Parliament’s precincts, the functioning and the functions of the Legislature are known to the people. But when the opinion of the people in the streets is sought for, for example just as in Niamey and in the rural areas of Niger, with the techniques of the “street radio”, one realizes that the State institutions are generally distant, opaque, unknown or poorly esteemed. It is on this absence of information that prejudices and misgivings are built, all of which are detrimental to Parliaments: the MPs do little for their electorate, they travel more than work, the Parliament is of little use, while it costs us fortunes, so goes often the saying, when interviews are conducted in township wards and rural areas.
Through several initiatives, attempts are made to open up the Parliament to the citizenry, to public information and to transparency: “open doors’ days”, guided and organized visits, Parliaments’ programmes for children, or just opening plenary sittings and committee proceedings to the visitors’ galleries, as well as giving access to parliamentary libraries to university researchers. In this way, parliaments make themselves known and become user-friendly.
Other political decisions have transformed the parliament, a customarily closed institution, into a forum which is not only open but functional and even comfortable for journalists’ work. Press halls, offices, radio and TV connections, specialized press tribune, attending to the customary media question time after each important sitting, and turn by turn between the majority and the opposition; all of the foregoing represents a communication strategy enabling the citizens to meet the parliament live and at home or at work, on a daily basis. This is often followed by institutional information, mostly on Internet, parliamentary web sites, and wider public dissemination of the parliamentary gazette, outlining the minutes of sittings’ proceedings, texts of bills, queries and questions, answers provided by the Executive and other parliamentary documentation. Finally, the aim is to show to the public how the Parliament functions and how parliamentarians perform their duties, what they vote for, how they represent their electorate, both to highlight the load of hard work efficiently accomplished and point out the unfortunate and rather too many exceptions: from incoherence to political floor-crossing to disregarding promises made in Chamber, without mentioning ordinary absenteeism.
This drive towards opening-up, transparency and information is beneficial both to the parliament and the government. It is fact that the texts which are usually debated in Parliament are government bills and that the major actors in important parliamentary debates are Cabinet Ministers, enjoying the same rights in this respect as the majority and opposition leaders. Therefore, Explaining the Parliament is not possible without explaining government’s policy, resulting in a win-win situation under which the policies of the highest institutions are explained through Parliament, which in turn becomes a closer and better understood institution.
The representational dynamism should not be conceived as a top-down, quasi-scholar and paternalistic process, in which the teacher would explain to the pupil what he should understand and know. A full-fledged parliamentary democratic process requires that the parliamentarian should know what his/her electorate wants with regard to key issues, and that he be, possibly, allowed to vote according to his conscience, though keeping party discipline as the major principle but giving priority to the expression of the voters’ will. Towards this end, many parliaments have developed public consultation mechanisms which enable the promotion of dialogue with society. In Rwanda or in Mongolia, attempts are made to involve the civil society through the parliamentary Committees, by receiving its representatives and those of the communities concerned before tabling, for discussions, bills that will affect the latter. This process, which is followed nationwide, is costly, complex and time- consuming. It requires a strong parliamentary solidarity that transcends political rivalries. Niger has proved that this process is not only feasible, but even more desirable as a source of consensus and parliamentary prestige when tackling key national issues (in this case, the policy and laws on decentralization). Over a million persons have been consulted in Niger by parliamentarians across party lines, in full partnership with the Decentralization High Commission, which had assumed, discreetly, the role of facilitator. Thus, limelight regained its rightful place in Parliament and civil society. The Niger experience remains a best practice of consultation between the parliament and the people. In the academic, scientific and parliamentary cycles, it is seen as an example of a success story in the area of legislative technical cooperation. It proves that it is possible to overcome skepticism and replace the citizens’ feelings of frustration towards a parliament which appears rather remote by a process of direct relationship which shows the tangible nature of public representation. One of the conclusions of this effort is that Parliamentarians urgently need public relation infrastructure within their constituencies. Whereas a good number of African Parliaments do not understand parliamentary office as a full-time professional job, whereas African parliamentarians are amongst the least adequately paid in the world, whereas African parliamentary administrative facilities are inadequate and poorly equipped, unavailable for all the parliamentarians, and almost always concentrated in the Assembly, the concept of a parliamentary constituency office, though important, is glaringly unknown within the African geographical space.
The controlling function of most African parliaments is minimized. The parliamentary oversight extends to all areas of the government’s work, but assumes a particular dimension when applied to budget. The UNACEB’s experience in Benin, The African Regional Initiative on Budget and the processes of Uganda and Kazakhstan are, for now, pioneer examples in this area.
Generally speaking, parliaments find themselves in an inferior position when it comes to overseeing the Executive. The government, in fact all governments in the world are trying to “work” and often consider the oversight function as a delaying factor, a disturbing intrusion into their internal affairs, or an invasion of their prerogatives. The institutional weakness of parliaments, the administrative structures of which employ, at best, just a few dozens of professionals, and the powerlessness of their Committees, prevent them from effectively oversee what the government, which employs thousands of civil servants, is doing. In fact, it is often said that the Parliamentary Committees are Parliament at work, the eyes and ears of the parliament. It could be insinuated that parliaments’ means are restricted in order to make them almost blind and deaf. Another factor inhibiting the control ability is the lack of parliamentary authority. The weakness or lack of cooperation from auxiliary institutions (Auditors, Comptrollers, Ombudsmen) inhibits the parliaments’ participation in governance when it comes to issues of formulating, implementing and evaluating public policies.
The above-mentioned UNACEB’s experience in Benin is still one of the best practices among recent parliamentary institutional developments. The creation of the State Budget Oversight and Evaluation Unit has resulted in the provision of quality, neutral, non-partisan and technical advice and services, stemming from an analysis body that is respected for its performance and scientific knowledge as well as for its ability to simplify and clarify the complex mechanisms and bulky budget data, a knowledge that no parliamentarian is ab initio supposed to harness. Today, more Niger’s MPs are not only able to understand but also to influence the budget process, to make their own contribution to the debate and analysis of the budget implementation. Our Nigerian colleagues, who, during this year, struggled for both the need to control the budget and that of approving it to enable the State to function, will quite understand the usefulness of such a structure. However, it should be noted that while some international institutions, in the first instance, complain of the powerlessness of parliaments, they are also quick to warn about the economic consequences when the parliament stops a government on the budget. Democracy, when in force, also has its costs !
Seminars organized by the Inter-parliamentary Union with UNDP’s support, respectively in Kenya and Mali, for English-speaking and French or Portuguese-speaking parliamentarians and parliamentary officials, have established a training mechanism on budget issues and processes. This scheme has been exported from Africa towards South-East Asian countries. One of the most innovative budget analyses is the gender budget analysis or even further, the gender-budgeting. It includes the study of revenues generated by the female population of a country and the needs of girls and women at the time of determining public expenditure.
Only 14% of the world’s parliamentarians are women. Fortunately, women’s representation in parliament does not border on the issue of social and economic development. Countries of the North, traditional champions in this field, stand shoulder to shoulder with Mozambique, South Africa or Argentina within the select club of the most egalitarian political systems with regard to gender. The quota policy, be it by Law in respect of electoral lists or by convention adopted within the major political parties, has proved to be quite efficient. Since 1995, within just 7 years, the quotas have enabled to increase the women’s political participation in 103 parliaments the world over (out of 140). But after the quota and quantity the next step is the quality of women’s parliamentary and political participation. This quality can only be attained through the increase of awareness, political and civic education, right from the early age, of girls and boys and the removal of obstacles which prevent women from being promoted candidates and elected as parliamentarians. Getting into office is only the first step towards women’s full political participation. From the view point of numbers, African countries, with few exceptions, are still among those where women face a lot of difficulties in their bid to be returned to Parliament. By world classification, only the above-mentioned two countries are found among the first 15, that have scored above 30% women’s representation, six countries between 20% and 30% of representation [Rwanda (21), Namibia (23), Uganda (24), Tanzania (30), Burundi (39) and Senegal (40)], and here other above 15% [Botswana (48), Angola (54) and Eritrea (56)] - yet all of them rising above the United States of America !
Within the context of gender budget analysis activities, another better practice is the one devised by Uganda with the assistance of the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), a Ugandan NGO. Of special focus were the health and education budgets closely related to major Millennium Development Goals. The results are excellent as shown by just one example: increase in the school enrolment rates and young girls’ persistence rates in primary and secondary education thanks to strengthened and appropriately targeted public expenditure on the education of young women and integration of a greater number of female teachers.
Despite the saying “what is not in the budget is no where in the world”, in parliamentary law, we know of areas where demanding government’s responsibility is one of the functions of the Legislature. The development of this function has led to the creation of dramatic regulations, literally speaking, the best known example of which is the novelty of oral questions put to the head of government or Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQT). This Westminster tradition forcefully went out of the British Isles to settle down almost everywhere in Europe, Asia and Latin America. However, it has not met the same success in Africa despite some exceptions. From this tradition stem many improvements of the Standing Orders which have introduced more balance in the system of oral questions put to Ministers, moral blame directed to Ministries which have taken the habit of ignoring the written questions addressed to them by MPs (or who give scant answers); the improvement also led to restraining the parliamentarians from obstructing or paralyzing a well-meaning Executive with multitude of questions which have little to do with genuine oversight. Furthermore, from observations, there has been a liberalization in the creation of parliamentary inquiry committees in serious cases of corruption allegations. Parliamentary Ombudsmen, who stem from parliament, with institutional loyalty towards the latter present their yearly reports before the Assembly, listing complaints by individual citizens on the abnormal functioning of public utility services, mandating the Parliament to urge the Executive to redress such deficiencies.
In many parliaments of Africa, despite the emphasis placed on the legislative function of chambers, this is limited to a hasty ratification of texts submitted by the government, and takes place in plenary sessions rather than within the framework of cool-headed and detailed discussions in committee. The abilities to draft bills are restricted to the expertise at the government’s disposal. The ordinary exercise of amending bills is severely constrained by lack of technical skills and the inadequacy of legal support at the disposal of the parliament’s administrative services. In other cases, the parliamentary lethargy and the sluggishness of the legislative polling move the governments to rule by decree, bypassing debates on the floor of the House or in Committee. The failure to establish a procedure that is both thorough and flexible, participative and fast, is another reason for marginalizing the parliament in the law-making process.
UNDP, with the technical assistance of the academia, has provided support in the lawmaking area, the most innovative experience being the distance course on legislative drafting. The lesson drawn from these experiences is that legislative success depends less on technical capabilities than is thought of, and more on management of the parliamentary agenda, of time allotted to Assemblies to analyse texts, of the parliamentary committees’ power and authority and of the capacity of these committees to form an opinion based on the reactions emanating from the sectors concerned by the proposed bills. The Rules of Procedure are, at times, an excellent support facilitating the task, but sometimes an obstacle which makes it more arduous. The reform of the applicable rules becomes, therefore, an essential means of guaranteeing efficient legislative function.
About a hundred of parliamentarians from 21 African countries had, sometime ago, in Gabon, under the auspices of the Inter-parliamentary Union and UNDP, pondered on the rights of the Parliamentary Opposition and the inherent limits, as well as on the duties of the political forces which are in minority within parliament. The Guidelines for the Opposition in Parliament, such as approved in Libreville, have since become a classic and an important African contribution to the world parliamentary development. According to these guidelines, the Parliament should represent the diversity of the society that elected it, and, as such, should be diverse. Its democratic culture requires that it manifests tolerance and freedom in order to manage the diversity of opinions and representations. The opposition is defined as a necessary and indispensable machinery for democracy, its main function being to constitute a credible alternative to the existing majority and to participate in the oversight of the government’s rule towards ensuring transparency, integrity and efficiency. A special protection of opposition MPs’ lives, personal integrity, private property and freedom of opinion characterize the parliamentary systems which place emphasis on fundamentals rights that are intrinsic to parliamentary democracy. In order to better perform its duties, the opposition needs an equitable access to the State media to disseminate its view points and propose its own solutions. The parliament should be consulted by the government on all fundamental issue affecting the nation’ existence and its development. This consultation allows the opposition to participate in the relevant debate and contribute its points of view. The opposition is entitled to participate in the organization of the internal functioning of the Parliament, its members having their offices within the premises of the Chamber or the equivalent body. The parliamentary groups, those of the opposition inclusive, should be able to recruit assistants or aids and use the parliamentary infrastructure. The opposition must be proportionally represented within the parliamentary committees and must have the right to appoint some committee Chairs, namely that of the budget Committee. The President of the Chamber must display impartiality in the discharge of his/her functions, for s/he represents the parliament as a whole and not his/her party. S/he has the duty to defend the opposition MPs. The opposition has the right, just as the majority has, to receive relevant government information and to table bills and amendments to relevant bills. Any parliamentarian has the legal right to put up oral and written questions to members of the cabinet and receive timely response to such questions. The agenda of the parliamentary sittings must reasonably take into consideration issues that the government, the majority and the opposition want to table for debate on the floor of the House and in Committee. When the State funds political parties, those of the opposition are entitled to such funding in proportion to their parliamentary and electoral strength. The parliamentary privilege and immunity must be guaranteed by Law to ensure an absolute protection of parliamentarians against any legal action for activities performed in the discharge of their duties. The opposition, according to the said guidelines, also has its duties, namely that of preparing itself, in a responsible manner, to the assumption of power to which it aspires. The opposition’s responsibility is demonstrated when it acts in the highest interest of the nation. Therein lies the concept of loyalty of the parliamentary opposition, avoiding to unnecessarily obstruct government’s action, to trivialize the parliamentary institution and depreciate the democratic life with meaningless clashes of personal ambitions and a tone, language or practice that denies parliamentary courtesy. “The members of opposition perform their function with due respect to the Constitution and Laws in force. They must abstain from preaching violence and renounce to any unconstitutional acts. Their action must be imbued with a spirit of tolerance and search for dialogue”
The parliaments’ involvement in the production of, and discussion on, poverty alleviation strategies sponsored by the World Bank is yet to reach the level expected by development partners. As for the parliaments, they have reacted by stating that their margin of maneuver is too narrow for them to be really able to influence a process that has long been embarked upon without their participation. In many cases, they have preferred to wait for the budget submission by government to effectively analyse whether or not the objectives of the PRSP correspond to the means awarded therefore; in this way, they dwelt more on sub-national poverty profiles, sectoral programmes and on evaluations than on production itself. The parliamentary capacity therefore is concentrated on controlling governmental commitments in the area poverty eradication, rather than on participation in defining these strategies. The UNDP and the World Bank Institute have assisted the parliaments of Niger, Nigeria and Malawi in reinforcing their capabilities to analyse PRSP and their partnership with the civil society in this process. It is increasingly frequent for PRSP to be submitted to Parliaments for their deliberation and approval : African governments have become more sensitive to the fact that no effort is too much in this important political and social challenge, and that the parliament cannot remain in the shadow when an issue of national importance of that magnitude is introduced into the political and institutional arena.
However, the PRSP enables the parliamentary capabilities to be reinforced in the area of representation and oversight of government. They have been devised in a manner as to easily permit the monitoring and social evaluation. They relate to the tangible realities that MPs consider on a daily basis: health, education, infrastructure, agricultural and industrial production, etc. The Parliamentary committees, in particular those dealing with social and economic affairs, are excellent entry points to reinforce the knowledge and capabilities of parliamentarians as well as their understanding of the PRSP. The direct relationship between the set objectives and budget monitoring enables to impart a less ultra-technical but more human aspect to the financial oversight function. Lastly, the process offers a meeting ground between the parliament and the government, the local governments and the civil society, an interaction so much needed by the legislature, particularly if it enables to touch the reality and effect the needed change on the ground.
Of course, all the foregoing points fit within the category of the development of the parliamentary institution. Strictly speaking, institutional development relates to strengthening the machinery, chambers’ services, secretariats, technical and material means with which the MPs work, etc. The most known tool to appropriately target the unlimited needs and priorities which will make a difference in the efficiency of the parliamentary activity, has been, in a recent past, the needs assessment. Such an assessment was successfully conducted in many parliaments : from 1999 up to now, we can mention Albania, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Fiji, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldavia, Mongolia, Palestinian territories, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Tajikistan, East Timor, Uruguay and Vietnam ; in Africa, Benin, the Republic of Congo, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger and Rwanda. This required a quarterly in-depth study per year, two per year in Africa. This reference and starting point normally opens the way for a subsequent technical assistance from donors, which allows Parliaments and development partners to apprehend the required support and the priority areas.
Needless to describe the different aspects of the support with respect to institutional development. Actually, all actions taken in this vein aim at reinforcing the autonomy of the parliament and its legislative, oversight and representational functions. It is in this perspective that they should be understood and analysed. A list of interventions, without being exhaustive, comprises the following aspects :
In all these categories and many others, a great number of projects have been implemented by parliaments, with the technical assistance of donor agencies and Northern parliaments. The partners who have associated their expertise to the development of the Southern parliaments are more and more numerous, ranging from specialised NGOs to donor agencies themselves. Surely, the following list is not complete, it only mentions the main actors known to UNDP and which usually co-operate with the UN in the democratisation and parliament strengthening efforts. In co-operation with the global parliaments organization, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and African regional Francophony and Commonwealth organizations, the NGOs which are steadily in partnership with the African parliaments are : the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA), the American Bar Association (ABA), the Parliamentary Centre of Canada, the Westminster Foundation, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Centre for Legislative Development, the legislative assistance programme of the State University of New York (SUNY) and the Association of Western Europe Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA). The most active donors according to UNDP, let aside the major donor, Belgium, which funds the Global Programme for Parliamentary Strengthening, include CIDA (Canada), DANIDA (Denmark), DfiD (UK), the French Co-operation, GTZ (Germany), JICA (Japan), NORAD (Norway), SIDA (Sweden) and USAID (United States of America).
The technical assistance to Parliaments is a recent phenomenon in the world of development co-operation, in fact, a co-operation area which, in less than ten years has achieved tremendous progress. It is also a strategically delicate area of partnership between the Parliaments and the donor agencies. The Parliaments, specialised institutions, experts and international organizations are making their first codifications of the lessons learnt, and are recording their best practices.
In view of this relative youth of the parliaments’ institutional development, the conclusions should not be too caustic, nor formulated with an absolute conviction. On the contrary, what proved to be an extraordinary, positive and sustainable experience in a given parliament has not at all been integrated in another. Still, the planning and evaluation tools are more and more refined, and allow to work nowadays with more technical quality than ten years ago. For instance, legislative development indicators are now understandable to everybody in this sector, and they allow both a better formulation of projects and a more accurate evaluation of their results.
The first conclusion that can be drawn from the 90s is that results did exist, but they could not be appropriately appreciated and measured, considering the heterogeneous character or even the absence of reliable indicators. Planning, by setting reference points on data that can be easily exploited without being obliged to make considerable expenses nor totally subjective estimates, is now possible and should be a duty for all agents involved in this sector, most importantly the parliamentarians who require technical assistance.
We have mentioned above that parliamentary co-operation evolved in a strategic and delicate area. We could add that it suffers from structural instability, considering that parliaments are to be renewed frequently. This casts additional risks on the already difficult work involving many actors - the number of the parliamentarians and their high-level status is another inescapable fact. Recent past teaches that the parliamentary co-operation has a major technical component, but cannot be adequately formulated or implemented if the political data are not taken into consideration. It is useless to make this a taboo or bury one’s head in the sand : the parliaments of developing nations were the first to surmount the belief in a purely technical assistance. The projects in support of parliaments are decided and managed at the highest level by the parliamentarians themselves, who are active politicians. The subject matter on which co-operation is fundamentally based is political, legal, social and economic. The political factors should be considered for fear of being unrealistic. This does not mean that one preaches or practises political co-operation ; on the contrary : it is precisely the technical co-operation to the institutional development which, to be successful, cannot do without the political realities of a given country. For example, to work with a parliament as a whole, a sufficiently solid consensus with the majority should be the basis of the work with the opposition, otherwise this programme will result in a failure in course of its implementation. It is recommended that conditions be created for a political and institutional consensus within the parliament prior to any parliamentary assistance. Ensuring pluralism within steering institutions and bodies in the planning of the activities and participation in all the actions of such an assistance project, is a pressing need for ensuring the democratic legitimacy of the project itself.
A parliamentary development project is more likely to be successful if the Steering Committee is chaired by the Speaker of the House and if there is political pluralism. The point is finally to identify the «Champions» of parliamentary reform and to involve them as closely as possible in the intervention. Such a programme is more stable if it adds to the activities meant for parliamentarians, a series of actions targeting the personnel of the chambers, as a guaranty of sustainability and ownership at the end of the project. Lastly, governments have proved not to be the best intermediaries when it comes to launching technical co-operation with Legislatures. It is recommended that Parliaments be given room for manoeuvre so that they could take responsibility for themselves and become the national counterpart of the projects concerning them.
A third lesson allows us to suggest integrated and related approaches for the interventions with respect to good governance and democratisation. More often than not, it is the support to electoral processes which open the way for a support to parliament stemming from these elections. Similarly, with regard to budget responsibility, working in co-operation with the Ministries of Finance, Audit Institutions, etc. has become a key to success. This connectivity should also go beyond national borders. National and regional experts have contributed a lot to the institutional development of parliaments. Learning from those who are taking the lead of a given component of the parliamentary development appears to be one of the best ways of incorporating change.
The parliamentary assistance is a fruit that ripens late. It requires patience and does usually show spectacular and outstanding short-term results. Particularly, the transitions require a decade to bear their fruits. Major institutional development require at least half of this time. The planning should take these into consideration : the pace is necessarily slower and the changes more discreet than in other sectors. Short-term projects may have a starting point value or a deduced objective, but cannot be subsumed in the category of assistance to parliaments’ institutional development. For example, training parliament typists is a praiseworthy and interesting initiative, but does not take on any strategic value. A programme which allows interactions between the parliamentarians, the local governments, audit institutions, civil society, media, the government and academic and research institutions seems to be in a better position to produce the synergies and in-depth changes than working exclusively with the parliament.
There is no fixed rule to begin a parliamentary assistance. However, in view of the average term of the related projects, which has increased from one or two years to four or five years, it is recommended to work on the basis of the parliamentary term or slightly over. It is also suggested that the office resumption of the parliamentarians is followed as soon as possible by the launching of the activities concerning them. In fact, the orientation of the newly elected MPs only makes sense if it is planned at the beginning of their term. The reason for matching the term of the project with the one of the Legislature is to allow the newly elected parliamentary authorities (Speaker and Committee Chairs) to re-examine the terms of the technical assistance and turn it into a supportive element to their own reform agenda. Another feature of the timing is the one related to the period of activities, when the MPs are in the capital city to attend the parliamentary sessions, and the break times when the MPs are impossible to reach (presidential or local elections, parliamentary holidays, etc.). Some activities targeted towards the support agents to the parliamentary process (Staff, parliamentary journalists, parliamentary advisors to Ministers, etc.) should be planned for these periods. A parliamentary assistance project should therefore take into account the seasonal character of the activity and the work in the House and its Committees.