• Parliamentary development

Parliamentary development

As donors, developing countries, and multilateral agencies have focussed their attention on governance, there has been a resurgence of interest in the role and potential of parliaments, and in what donors and others can do to strengthen parliaments. This report, aimed primarily at helping DFID to make informed decisions on strengthening parliament, has three sections:

• a review of the current state of knowledge regarding the role which parliaments play in nurturing state capability, accountability and responsiveness in developing countries
• a review of parliamentary strengthening work of organisations based outside the UK
• a review of the parliamentary strengthening work of organisations based in UK including DFID
  

The report also explores the relevance of the Paris Agenda’s principles on aid effectiveness to parliament strengthening. It then outlines a series of issues which DFID will need to consider in formulating its future strategy for parliament strengthening work.

The report suggests that to be effective parliamentary strengthening should:

• be demand-led
• address the causes of poor parliamentary performance, rather than solely addressing symptoms
• take full account of the local context
• involve a range of political organisation and interest groups
• use particular issues such as budget oversight, anti-corruption, HIV/AIDS and poverty reduction as vehicles to improve parliamentary performance, rather than focus only on parliamentary procedures
  

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