How can Parliamentary governance be strengthened in developing countries? What can be done to build the capacity and understanding of MPs on governance and economic reform? This brief from the World Bank Institute (WBI) examines and draws lessons from their multiyear Parliamentary capacity building programme in Ghana.
Previous WBI global parliamentary training programmes worked with individual MPs on specific policy issues. This was the first to focus on Parliament as an institution. Following the 1996 and 2000 elections, few MPs had experience in Parliament or in dealing with policy issues, partisan tensions were high, and there were severe weaknesses in Ghana’s civil service. In 1998 CIDA funded this multiyear programme following initial workshops on the budget process.
The programme targeted three areas of organisational development; building cross-partisan trust within committees, developing strategic approaches to committee planning, and providing deeper research and analytical support. Links with ministries, the Auditor General’s Office and civil society were strengthened. As a result:
- MPs understanding of budget and governance issues was deepened.
- MPs played a leadership role in key development issues such as tackling corruption.
- Committees became less partisan and more effective.
- Workshop participants shared new knowledge.
The programme demonstrated seven factors crucial for sustainable parliamentary strengthening:
- Strong domestic political support (in Ghana’s case continuing through election of a new government in 2000).
- Complementarities with broader governance reform.
- Integration of training activities into broader parliamentary capacity-building initiatives.
- Flexible design of training activities to reflect changing or evolving parliamentary agendas.
- Reduction in partisanship. Partisanship and committee effectiveness are inversely related.
- Initial or concurrent programmes for Parliamentary staff. This deepens the main programmes institutional impact.
- Direct interface between committees and international organisations. This also gives the donor direct contact with the policy making process.
