Parliamentary Development in Asia and the Pacific

Developing and Enhancing Political Party Dialogues and Capacity Development Initiatives in Asia-Pacific

Political parties represent a keystone of democratic governance; they provide a structure for political participation, serve as a training ground for future leaders, and they work and exist to transform aggregated social interests into public policy. In the legislature, political parties play an important role in shaping the relationship between the executive and the legislature and prioritizing the legislative agenda.

In many countries today political parties are an essential part of the apparatus of governance. Ideally they play a fundamental role in the exercise of democracy. The 2002 Global HDR noted ‘a well functioning democracy depends on well functioning political parties responsive to people’.

Hitherto, however, largely, support to political parties has often been avoided, due in part to a perception that involvement with political parties constitutes interference in the internal affairs of the state, or concerns over perceptions of lack of neutrality or bias in dealing with political parties. Indeed, the UNDP Handbook on Political Parties notes that of all political party assistance found worldwide the majority of assistance is found goes to Central and Eastern Europe and significant amounts end up in the former Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa. A very small proportion winds up in Asia and the Arab States. Thus, political party programmes in Asia are minimal in comparison to the rest of the globe. This imbalance needs to be rectified.

The final issue of importance with regard to standard political party programming to date is that most political party aid providers are external. While these organizations do bring a considerable amount of experience and expertise to the table, nonetheless, they also bring at times ‘templates’ of party assistance programmes, which do not always take into account the local variations and contexts of political party cultures and environments. It is critical therefore, that we begin to avoid the ‘mythic model’ of political party programming, work with international external providers in partnering with local research and training institutes to adapt training and capacity development programmes tailored to local political, economic, social and cultural context.

Scope of Programme Intervention

The project therfore aims to develop dialogues between political parties in select countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with a view to

• a) determining national and localized strategies for sustained issue-based dialogues, and
• b) reaching mutual agreement on key areas for national capacity development of political parties, including in areas such as campaign finance, constitutional reform, odes of ethics and conduct, political campaigning, women’s participation and representation, political exclusion, party financing, and anti-corruption.

The project end purpose would be to develop a set of guidelines for political party development programming and capacity development initiatives at country levels, taking into account the very specific local socio, economic, cultural and importantly political contexts, in each country. A one size fits all approach to dialogue, capacity development and programming will be specifically avoided.

Gender Considerations: As part of the democratic dialogues, first and foremost, women political party members will be required to make up at least 50% of the participants (where numbers allow). Issues such as campaign finance, codes of conduct and others outlined above are not gender exclusive and are relevant to both men and women. However, each dialogue will devote at least 50% of time, to looking at issues of particular concern to women politicians and representatives as well as issues of concern to women, such as representation, media coverage, electoral violence, leadership, as well as policy issues such as gender budgeting, MDGs, domestic violence, labor reform etc.

Marginalized or Vulnerable Groups: A major area for focus within dialogues, especially in conflict countries, will be on constitutional reform and processes. In this context, the issue of minorities and marginalized groups will be at the forefront of the discussion. This is a critical area of discussion in general in the Asia region as constitutional issues are of concern in many countries including, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, Indonesia and others.

Further details of the project, please visit:

• Objectives and Key Activities
• Outputs and Outcomes
• Innovation and Sustainability