Parliamentary Development in Asia and the Pacific

Parliamentary Oversight and the Achievement of the MDGs

The World Summit held in September 2005 reaffirmed the international commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.  Developing countries committed to adopt national plans for achieving the MDGs, while developed states pledged an additional $50 billion a year by 2010 for fighting poverty.  Good governance and citizen participation were noted as pre-requisites for enabling developing states to complete achievable plans and engender good will for the fulfillment of pledges.   

In the Asia-Pacific Region, the second regional MDG Report (2005) puts forward progress in every country for each of the MDG targets. Predictably, there is immense diversity in the progress that countries have made towards achieving the MDGs with trend lines showing that this is likely to continue through to 2015. There is now an immediate need to make the crucial link between national development frameworks and the development outcomes needed to meet the MDGs.

In order to support countries do such and in response to the 2005 World Summit outcomes, UNDP has developed the ‘Integrated Package of Services’ (IPS): a menu of tools, mechanisms and services that support the planning, design and implementation of national MDG-based development strategies in developing countries. It is demand-driven and support is tailor-made to countries’ needs. The IPS framework is organized along three pillars:

• MDG-based diagnostics, investment and planning;
• Widening policy options; and
• Strengthening national capacities to deliver basic goods and services.

The roll-out of the IPS is envisaged over a three year period, beginning January 2006. By the end of 2006 it is envisaged that 33 countries will have UNDP and UNCT support mobilized in the area of MDG-based national development strategies. The support to develop capacity of Parliaments to better engage them in the MDGs is important for a number of reasons not least of which are that Parliaments provide the critical space in which policy options play out and Parliaments also have seminal oversight functions over public monies deployed in support of MDG-achievement.   

The role of parliaments and support to parliamentary development has gained increased recognition and support in recent years as countries and their development partners acknowledge the critical importance of a vibrant and independent legislature within an overall context of pursuing governance reforms and providing an enabling environment for development. Nevertheless, while parliaments and parliametary institutional support initiatives have become an integral part of UNDP development programmes, parliaments in general, in many countries, remain fairly weak or incapacitated in the face of continued dominant executive branches of government. This is particularly true with regard to their role in oversight and law-making, as many parliaments remain at a either a rubber stamp level or have little or minimal influence over policy making and budgetary appropriations.

In general, the involvement of legislatures with the MDGs has lagged behind the participation of civil society and the executive. Often legislative engagement occurs informally through the participation of individual members, acting in their individual capacities as political leaders.  Legislative institutional involvement in MDG or Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) consultative processes, such as committee hearings, has tended to be more limited and often occurs too late for real input  - often placing the legislature in the position of either 'rubber-stamping' MDG targeted programmes or significantly delaying their implementation.  Knowledge of the MDGs and the various poverty reduction planning processes by members of parliament and staff remains weak, and individual legislators have not been effectively used to gather citizen input or to disseminate information about poverty reduction strategies to their constituents.  

Legislative involvement and oversight with respect to national plans, their implementation and monitoring cannot and should not be delinked from this overall framework. True country ownership of the MDGs can be achieved only if legislative institutions, which are typically given constitutional responsibility for enacting the legislation and budgets necessary to meet the MDGs, understand the goals’ purpose and are actively involved in the planning process.  Legislatures that are not directly involved are less likely to engage their constituents in poverty reduction issues, to enact laws and budgets that are consistent with national development plans, or to conduct effective oversight of the executive branch on the implementation of poverty reduction programmes.  Too often, developing legislatures lack the practical skills and tools that are necessary to effectively participate in the MDGs. UNDP, through its flagship ARGP based in the APRC, is planning in 2006 to provide resources for MPs and parliamentary staff about legislative involvement in poverty reduction. Read more…