PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

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An effective parliament (II): Parliament’s involvement in international affairs I 163 ■ In Niger, the National Assembly was involved from the beginning of the PRSP process. Members participated in thematic groups covering the key areas of development concern. The final PRSP document was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers and was submitted for discussion to the National Assembly. (p.48) The examples provided above suggest that two forms of greater parliamentary involvement in the PRSP process have proved workable in practice: ■ Involvement of parliamentarians in the development of the country’s policy through a special parliamentary committee and participation by sectoral working groups; and ■ Monitoring implementation on the ground not merely for its financial soundness but especially for its effectiveness in delivering poverty reduction. The difficulties confronting parliaments in maintaining oversight on poverty reduction strategies are also well recognised by the UNDP, which is responsible for overall coordination and monitoring of the MDGs. Among many of its initiatives the publication with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of three handbooks on strengthening parliamentary involvement in reducing poverty is noteworthy. The handbooks list a number of useful strategies for briefing parliamentarians and identify the types of information they need and possible sources for obtaining it, how they can use the PRSP process itself to empower parliaments and the need to factor in sufficient time into the process to allow for genuine legislative debate on key issues. The latter is particularly important since the executive and legislative branches work on different time scales. The accompanying diagramme from the UNDP handbook identifies the typical areas where parliamentary interventions may have an impact.
164 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Figure 7.1: Synchronising legislative-executive coordination with specific points in the PRSP cycle Source: United Nations Development Programme, National Democratic Institute (2004). Legislativeexecutive communication on poverty reduction strategies. The Millennium Development Goals require governments in the developed world to honour their commitments on aid and to make sure that the value of the aid given is not offset many times over by the negative effects of unfair trade regimes and the requirements of debt repayment, which is currently the case. This puts a particular responsibility on parliaments in developed countries to keep pressure on their governments to fulfil their aid commitments, and to ensure that it is being used effectively; and, in addition, not to separate oversight of aid policy from a wider consideration of trade policy and international finance. A number of parliamentary submissions for this Guide report that increasing attention is being given to oversight of aid policy. In Japan, for example, the House of Councillors has decided to dispatch parliamentary missions on a regular basis to countries where Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) is being received. The aim of the missions is “to determine whether
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Myanmar, 176 Namibia, 77, 110 Natio
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Sweden, 63, 75, 110, 112, 165 gende
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