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parliamentary investigation committees.5) Parallel investigations regarding potential conflictissues.6) Direct civic education activities (or through civilsociety organizations).7) Possibility to summon a minister or a nationaladvisor before a committee regarding conflictprevention issues; can ask him / her to deliver anofficial statement regarding the (potential) conflictor to brief the parliament regarding the ministry’sactivities.8) Can support civil society organizations withtechnical and financial aid.9) Dialogue and communication between theparliaments and citizens.10) Can set up joint missions with parliamentarians,government representatives and civil societyorganizations to investigate and address issues.11) Some parliaments can vote and control their ownbudget and include it in the state’s budget.12) Field visits.Opportunities1) Legal limitation to the number of mandates for theexecutive authority.2) Diversity of committees.3) Strategic plan: can allow access to funds.4) Gender budgeting.5) Effective party caucuses.6) The Parliament should be in control of its ownbudget: amend and approve a budget independentfrom the influence of the government.7) Internal democratization of the parties.8) Work with civil society organizations: expertiseavailable and link with the people.9) Networking and mobilization of resources.10) Strengthening of parliamentary capacities andtechnical assistance in legislation, communication,mediation and crisis resolution.11) International seminar on capacity strengthening,which should involve the staff of the parliament.12) Lessons learned from the crisis and its roots;mainstreaming of conflict sensitive laws andreview of existing laws.13) Role of parliament in recommendations.14) Training of parliamentarians.15) Role of independent think tanks in terms of policyadvice.16) A special legal counsel unit could be created inparliament to help parliamentarians analyze bills.17) Greater access to international support.18) Ensure that ECOWAS is more involved and takesinto account the concerns of national parliaments.legislation or other activities such as field visits toconstituents.5) High turnover of parliamentarians: lack ofexperience and continuity. need to focus on institutional capacity building6) Lack of institutionalization of international support the knowledge disappears with people.7) No access or liberty to use the local developmentfunds in the way parliamentarians think is the mostappropriate.8) No budget for public hearings or for committees.9) Lack of specific law addressing gender issues.10) Excessive use of the word “terrorism” whichdoesn’t allow any real discussion.11) Male parliamentarians lack of knowledge regardingwomen parliamentarians’ challenges, includingphysical threats.Threats1) Abuse of power by the executive authority overthe parliament.2) Unlimited number of mandates for the executiveauthority.3) Excessive use of the possibility to dissolute theparliament.4) The president’s party absorbing the others andcontrolling the parliament.5) Personal security threat for parliamentarians andfor women in particular who would like to run forparliament.6) IGO – NGO: hostile attitude sometimes.7) Gender attribution of dossier (social for womenparliamentarians and economics for men).8) No possibility to run as an independentparliamentarian.9) No voice for people who don’t belong to a politicalparty.10) Reduction of the power of parliaments.11) Lack of understanding / qualification ofparliamentarians.12) Self-censorship of parliamentarians.13) Donor fatigue.14) Instability of neighboring countries.15) Porous borders.16) Big contrast between political parties which areeither too strong or too weak.17) Lack of forensic test facilities continues to entrenchimpunity with regards to rape and other genderbasedviolence.34
19) Encourage parliamentarians to elaborate andinclude community programmes at the local level(especially when the central authority is too farfrom the villages).20) Promote closer and stronger relationshipsbetween parliamentarians and constituents.21) Campaign financing: need of code of conduct tomake sure that parliamentarians remainindependent once elected.18) Religious and cultural constraints that limit accessof minorities to parliament.19) The tendency for parliamentarians to favor theirown personal interest over the national publicinterest.75. Through this exercise, parliamentarians realized the substantial number of similarities regarding thestrengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of their respective parliaments’ work andfunctioning in terms of crisis prevention and recovery. They were able to learn from each other andidentify collective ways and solutions to address the ongoing problems and current challenges.76. During Session 8, Ms. DianeSheinberg, Programme Specialiston Parliamentary Development(DGG, UNDP) - and Mr. Marc-Antoine Morel, ProgrammeSpecialist on Small Arms andArmed Violence (BCPR, UNDP) -presented UNDP’s crisisprevention and recoveryprogramme for West Africanparliaments, with a particularfocus on the work carried out bythe Democratic GovernanceGroup (DGG) and the Bureau forCrisis Prevention and Recovery(BCPR) at the global, regionaland national levels in CentralAmerica, West Africa and theArab States region.Left to right: Diane Sheinberg, Francesco Torcoli, Marc-Antoine Morel77. Mr. Morel first explained the objective of UNDP’s programme which is to develop the capacity ofnational parliaments to prevent conflict and armed violence by:Informing the role that national parliaments can play in supporting the prevention of conflictand of violence and the restoration of citizen security through research and case studies;Promoting the involvement of national parliaments in conflict prevention and violence reductionwith a view to influence policy change;Empowering regional organizations and national parliaments on conflict prevention and armedviolence reduction related issues;Coordinating further the parliamentary work on conflict prevention and recovery with a firstthematic window on armed violence and citizen security.35
Page 1: Regional SeminarREPORTTowards Stren
Page 4 and 5: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYOn the basis of UN
Page 6 and 7: INTRODUCTION1. On the basis of UNDP
Page 8 and 9: OPENING CEREMONY9. The opening cere
Page 10 and 11: Building inclusive, responsive and
Page 12 and 13: Parliaments should adopt a region-w
Page 14 and 15: SESSION 2: Parliamentary Performanc
Page 17 and 18: SESSION 3: Parliaments as Peace-Bui
Page 19 and 20: 36. General reflections on the foll
Page 21 and 22: Sierra Leone for example, a reprodu
Page 23 and 24: a) Effective parliamentary oversigh
Page 25 and 26: 51. Mr. Asoba identified 4 major ch
Page 27 and 28: consultations and campaigns for pea
Page 29 and 30: From left to right: Dr. Rasheed Dra
Page 31 and 32: Strengthening the mechanisms of reg
Page 33: 3) Successful interventions in the
Page 37 and 38: SESSION 9: Closing session: partner
Page 39 and 40: CONCLUSION85. Strengthening parliam
Page 41 and 42: 11:00 - 11:15 Coffee breakSession 3
Page 43 and 44: Annex 2: Participants ListMembers o
Page 45 and 46: International and Regional Organiza

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