Democratic Governance
DFID-UNDP-WBI Consultation on Parliamentary Development and Financial Accountability

SESSION I:  Opening/Welcome/ Objectives/Introductions.
           
The session would include brief informal welcoming remarks, a discussion of the objectives of the consultation, an opportunity for participants to introduce themselves to each other, and to review of basic logistical matters. 

Presenters: Kris Paneels, Director Multilateral Organisations, Directorate General for Development Co-operation – Belgium; Scott Hubli, UNDP representative; Carlos Santiso, DFID representative; Rick Stapenhurst, WBI representative.

SESSION II: Review of Recent Evaluations and Reviews of Parliamentary Development. 

This session would allow an exchange of findings from recent evaluations on parliamentary development programmes (SIDA’s evaluation of their parliamentary development portfolio, DFID’s recent efforts in this area, the UNDP Evaluation of their Global Programme for Parliamentary Development).

Moderator: Kris Paneels, Director Multilateral Organisations, Directorate General for Development Co-operation – Belgium

Presenters: Jonathan Murphy , UNDP consultant (UNDP evaluations of the Global Programme for Parliamentary Strengthening, GPPS, and the Support for the Establishment of the Afghan Legislature, SEAL program); Alan Hudson, Research Fellow(ODI; DFID Evaluation of Parliamentary Strengthening in Developing Countries), Niklas Enander, SIDA (SIDA’s Evaluation of their parliamentary development programmes)

Lunch sponsored by the Government of Belgium at the Palais d’Egmont

SESSION III: Developing Normative Frameworks for Parliamentary Development  

This session would allow a discussion of emerging normative frameworks for parliamentary development.   Some areas of democratic governance, such as election assistance and human rights have been standards-based; others, such as parliamentary development, have historically been more relativistic.   However, there appears to be an emerging international consensus that not all democratically elected parliaments function democratically and that there are certain aspects of democratic parliaments that transcend the type of parliamentary or separations-of-powers system.  This session would review and discuss the developing international consensus on normative framework for parliamentary development. 

Moderator:  Dick Toornstra (European Parliament)

Presenters:  Norah Babic, IPU(on the IPU publication on Parliament and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century: A Guide to Good Practice);   Scott Hubli, UNDP(discussing UNDP approach to parliamentary normative frameworks and the NDI Discussion Paper “Toward the Development of International Standards for Democratic Parliaments”), Nicolas Bouchet, CPASecretariat(discussing Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Study Group on Benchmarks on Democratic Parliaments)

SESSION IV:  Measuring Progress in Parliamentary Development.  

In addition to strengthening the normative framework for parliamentary development, it is also important to have means of measuring progress against it. This session would review efforts to development indicators to measure progress on parliamentary development. 

Moderator: Jeremy Armon (DFID)

Presenters:  Steven Fish, Professor- University of California at Berkeley (Author of recent Journal of Democracy article Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies andcreator of the Parliamentary Powers Index); Rasheed Draman,  Canadian Parliamentary Centre (work on effective parliaments), Keith Schulz, USAID (USAID experience on indicators).

SESSION V: Strengthening Parliament’s Role
in Financial Governance

There is increasing attention on the importance of parliaments in the budget process and their contribution to improving transparency and accountability in financial management, particularly as donors begin seek to implement the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness and scale up general budget support. However, there is an increasing recognition of the limits of traditional approaches to capacity development focusing on technical capacities and legal powers. It is increasingly acknowledged that politics matter and the need to consider the broader governance context in which parliaments are embedded and the political incentives of parliamentarians to exercise an effective and responsible role in public budgeting. This session seeks to review some of the successful and less successful efforts in understanding and addressing the political economy of legislative budgeting.  

Moderator: Carlos Santiso (DFID)

Presenters: Joachim Wehner, LSE Lecturer (on recent LSE/DFID study on “Strengthening Legislative Financial Scrutiny in Developing Countries”); Barry Anderson , OECD(on the experience with legislative budget offices); Mzwanele Mfunwa, UNECA (on “ The Role of African Parliaments in the Budgetary Processes”)

Coffee Break

SESSION VI: Parliamentary Mechanisms of Budget Oversight and Financial Control

This session seeks to review the main approaches and strategies to strengthen parliament’s institutional role in budget oversight and financial control.   It will cover examples of PACs, relationships with parliament and supreme audit institutions, and strengthening/establishing legislative budget offices, as well as the role of civil society in working with parliaments on the budget process.  It will also discuss the challenges and risks of greater donor involvement in domestic politics and the relations between the executive (finance ministries) and the legislature in the budget process and its oversight, in particular considering the role of strong finance ministries to discipline the budget process and the uneven role of parliaments in the budget process. 

Moderator: Albrecht Stockmayer (GTZ)

Presenters: Rick Stapenhurst, WBI (on recent book on Parliaments and Curbing Corruption); Albert Van Zyl, IBP (International Budget Project)

SESSION VII:  Conclusions and Recommendations for Ways Forward

The purpose of this session will be to discuss methods for sustaining a parliamentary community of practice in the donor community.  This would include discussions on how to improve the effectiveness and coordination of donor support to parliamentary strengthening through, for example, more systematic sharing of information, periodic meetings, future topics for additional discussion, as well as operational implications and possible guidance.  

Facilitators: Scott Hubli, UNDP representative; Carlos Santiso, DFID representative; Rick Stapenhurst, WBI representative.