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Parliaments in Sub-Saharan Africa: Actors in Poverty Reduction?

Author: W Eberlei and H Henn
Date: 2003
Size: 65 pages (501 KB)

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Summary

How have Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) processes affected the status of parliaments in national policy making? This report published by GTZ investigates the role played by parliaments during PRS implementation in 28 African states. Donors are recommended to address the legal and political conditions of the legislatures, the functional capacity of parliaments, their interaction with other actors, and the international donor policy environment.

The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and the resulting Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) considerably influence national development processes. Governments are the traditional focus of development cooperation (DC). Recent attention to the importance of popular participation has led to a one-sided concentration on civil society actors. The limited participation of parliaments in the PRS process has further contributed to the erosion of parliamentary authority.

The majority of countries in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) have presidential systems in which the executive dominates. Parliamentary promotion is perceived as being politically highly sensitive, resulting in little donor assistance to parliaments. Moreover, members of parliament are still tainted by the reputation of being part of a system of organised political patronage. Some characteristics of the PRS processes in SSA are:

• Parliamentary involvement in PRS processes has been restricted to participation by individual members in consultation sessions. There is a need to strengthen institutional participation within the PRS process, which would also support general parliamentary capacity building.
• In several cases, PRSPs submitted by the government have been accepted by the IMF and the World Bank even though the country's constitution requires parliamentary approval.
• Practice in current PRS processes not only undermines the long-term institutional development of parliamentary democracies in Africa, but also wastes opportunities for effective poverty reduction.
• The weak situation of parliaments is rooted in the characteristics of political systems, a generally weak democratic culture, and limited access to financial, technical, and human resources.
• In the few countries where central governments are trying to decentralise the national PRSPs, the role of elected bodies at local level is completely open.

The fundamental problem of low political acceptance of an active parliament cannot be directly solved by development cooperation. Influencing the legal and political conditions for parliamentary work is a difficult and lengthy process. However, measures creating a higher public profile for the role and work of parliament through supporting press offices and internet presence could make a contribution. Donors can provide technical assistance to strengthen the functional capacities of parliaments in legislation, budgetary involvement and executive control. Specific ways in which donors can strengthen the parliaments include:

• A significant increase is needed in transparency and the flow of information between executive and legislature. The institutionalisation of mechanisms such as a regular reporting system would significantly improve parliament's capability to perform its functions.
• Public hearings and interaction between parliament and civil society should be strengthened. This could improve the parliament's public relations as well as increase the parliament's access to civil society's specialist knowledge of issues relevant to poverty.
• Donors should provide capacity building of budgetary powers by improving resources available to the budget committee or providing assistance from external or internal research capacities.
• Donors should invite an official delegation from parliament to their Consultative Group Meetings, granting the right to express an opinion on central discussions.
• Donors should explicitly enquire about parliamentary involvement in the PRS process, and include the observations in the IMF/World Bank Joint Staff Assessments.

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Source: Eberlei, W. and Henn, H., 2003, ‘Parliaments in Sub-Saharan Africa: Actors in Poverty Reduction?’, GTZ, Eschborn