Strengthening Regional Parliaments towards Achieving The Millennium Development Goals

Mise à jour le Lundi, 16 Janvier 2012 11:45 Écrit par Alizia Kamani Mardi, 19 Avril 2011 08:43

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In September 2000, world leaders gathered in New York to discuss the role of the United Nations in the 21st century. The meeting produced a set of objectives called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are intended to focus development efforts and provide a mechanism for measuring performance. The MDGs focus on human development and emphasise the role of developed countries in providing aid to developing countries.

With the 2015 target date of achievement of the goals just some years away, it has become clear that results are spread unevenly across the continents, with least success in Africa. The 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals Report therefore concluded that without a major push during the remaining years, many goals will likely be missed in developing regions.

Why is this programme needed?

One of the lessons learned from the past decade is that concrete results can be accomplished if international development partners support nationally-owned development strategies and policies. Good and democratic governance is, though, a necessity to make that a success. However, in the process of policy formulation and implementation, there has been a striking lack of systematic engagement with elected representatives of the affected populations.

AWEPA believes parliamentarians should play a key role in oversight and scrutiny of government policy and legislation towards the achievement of the MDGs. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated, "Parliaments provide the enabling national legislative framework for achieving the MDGs and are at the forefront of fighting for improved livelihoods and access to basic services"[1].

2011 marks the launch of AWEPA's new 5-year Parliamentary Support Programme: 'Strengthening Regional Parliaments towards achieving the MDGs' (MDG Programme), which builds on previous thematic-capacity building programmes. The programme focuses on the empowerment of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), Southern African Development Community's Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF), the Economic Community of West African States' Parliament (ECOWAS-P) and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa's Parliament (CEMAC-P) to better perform their roles and duties in overseeing and promoting the performance of the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities.

Programme Purpose 

The overall purpose of the MDG programme is to strengthen the performance of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) and the Regional Parliamentary Bodies (RPB) of Africa in legislation and oversight of MDG policies. Within this purpose, four result areas have been set out for the programme:

Result Area 1: Increase the role of members of the PAP and the RPBs in the development of policy and legislation relevant to the MDGs. This result area focuses on strengthening the capacity of PAP and the RPBs, through the exchange of best practices, expert briefings and the joint examination of legislation and policies.

Result Area 2: Strengthen the budgetary roles of PAP and the RPBs to develop their strategic approach in providing parliamentary oversight as well as to secure accountability vis-à-vis the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in their work towards achieving the MDGs. The objective here is to encourage parliamentarians to enhance their skills regarding oversight on MDG policies, legislation and budgets.

Result Area 3: This area focuses on improving inter-parliamentary action and participation in international fora on MDG related issues and development effectiveness. There is also a focus on increasing North-South and South-South dialogue in matters relating to the MDGs, including trade relations, investments, and access to innovations; aid effectiveness based on the Accra Agenda of Action; human rights issues, including gender and children's rights; global challenges such as Climate Change, pandemics, especially HIV and AIDS, and global economic inequalities, among others.

Result Area 4: The programme also aims to strengthen the institutional capacity of the PAP and the RPBs for strategic planning and monitoring. This includes the review of strategies and priority setting for the duration of the programme in terms of concrete planning of programme activities. Attention will also be paid on monitoring previous activities to understand how the parliamentary bodies develop as a result of the programme.

Activities

Based on AWEPA's experience and expertise, activities will mainly focus on four thematic areas:
  • Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger (MDG 1)
  • Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women (MDG 3)
  • Health and Development (MDG 4-6)
  • Ensure Environmental Sustainability (MDG 7)
To achieve all four result areas, the MDG Programme will facilitate the following types of activities:
  • Regional seminars and thematic workshops
  • Training on oversight of policies aiming at the achievement of the MDGs
  • Inter-parliamentary dialogue activities to improve North-South and South-South cooperation
Activities focussed on strategic planning and result based monitoring. Please refer to the AWEPA website for more information on upcoming MDG activities: www.awepa.org/en/activities
  
  

Thematic Priorities

Over the duration of previous thematic capacity-building programmes including the Mobilising Parliamentarians for NEPAD (MPN) Programme, AWEPA worked closely with parliamentarians to scale up their efforts for agriculture, climate change, private sector development, HIV/AIDS and Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC). The current MDG Programme will continue these efforts through support for the following MDGs: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger (MDG 1); Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women (MDG 3); Health and Development (MDG 4-6); and, Ensure Environmental Sustainability (MDG 7).
 
Agriculture 
Only in recent years the international community recognised the importance of Africa's agriculture. But while donor funding is becoming increasingly available for use within the sector these days, there is one area of relative silence which must be rectified. This is in Africa's parliaments, which should be playing a lead role in stimulating agricultural productivity. While donors recognize the significance of good governance, they have not thought it important to strengthen agriculture committees. This seems extraordinary given the importance of agriculture in Members of Parliaments' constituencies and to African countries.
  
In a response, AWEPA initiated a parliamentary capacity building programme focusing on the NEPAD agenda including the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) about four years ago. On the request of partners, AWEPA sought to promote the effectiveness of NEPAD's CAADP policy through a series of regional conferences in Sub-Saharan Africa. This thread was continued with national workshops for agriculture committees on agriculture, food security and climate change in a number of countries. The individual activities laid bare the need for intensive thematic capacity building for committee members as well as parliamentary staff attached to the agriculture committee.
  
In 2009 AWEPA together with Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) embarked on a Pilot Programme called: African Parliamentary Support for Agriculture (APSA). Through various activities the APSA Pilot identified needs and subsequently developed a programme upon the request of the Agriculture Parliamentary Committees in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ghana. The Agriculture Committees strongly requested support in the areas of oversight, representation, and the ability to draft legislation. Separate attention was paid to the staffing and skills of the committee and its members.
During the current MDG Programme more activities will be developed to build on the above-mentioned capacity-building efforts.  
 
Climate Change 
At the beginning of the new millennium, Africa is characterised by two interrelated features: rising poverty levels and deepening environmental degradation. Sustainable development is a fundamental part of the UN Millennium Development Goals and forms an integral part of the NEPAD policy framework. Climate Change is probably the most urgent environmental challenge right now. In Africa the issue of Climate Change is closely linked to major environmental, economic and social-developmental challenges of the continent.
Africa and Europe have a strong common interest in an effective global Climate Change response:
  • European OECD countries have a primary responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as they are major emitters and have the best economic and technological capacity to do so
  • People living in African developing countries are more directly affected by climate change, as they live in vulnerable ecosystems often unprotected against natural disasters. At the same time their governments are facing the challenge of generating the rapid economic growth needed to achieve the MDGs in an environmentally sustainable way
In order to ensure a global perspective and accountability for climate strategies, AWEPA embarked on an African-European Parliamentary Dialogue on Climate Change, Food Security and Development in August 2008, Nairobi to prepare parliamentary inputs to the UNFCCC COP15 meeting in Copenhagen. It was strongly felt that a North-South and South-South dialogue should be encouraged involving parliamentarians and civil society. At the inception of this dialogue, 14 African and 14 European parliaments, NGO representatives and international experts united and issued an African-European Parliamentary Action Plan on Climate Change and Food Security. Over 2008 and 2009 three regional seminars and 6 national workshops took place in West, East and Southern Africa focussing on
 
Additionally, AWEPA started a Parliamentary Programme for Climate Change Mitigation in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) in April 2009. The programme was a response to the need for Parliaments in the SACU region to play a more prominent role in Climate Change Mitigation and in the development of environment-friendly policies. The programme promoted legislation and parliamentary scrutiny as well as regional and African-European Parliamentary cooperation in relation to Climate Change Mitigation in the SACU region.
 
The programme consisted of regional seminars and national follow-up workshops where a team of researchers from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) (implementing partner) compiled overviews of the coherence between sectoral policies of the countries, assessing the expected socio-economic effects of Climate Change policies, and identifying entry points for National Parliamentary Plans of Action.
 
The programme results include the following:
  • After the national workshops on climate change organised by AWEPA and IIED, the Botswana parliament established The Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and the Committee on Climate Change; In South Africa, Members of Parliament called again for the need to set up an inter-sectoral parliamentary group on climate change
  • Contacts between Members of Parliament and government representatives working on Climate Change, Climate change experts/academics and NGOs have been established and/ or strengthened
  • MPs from the SACU region have recognised the need for closer regional and international parliamentary cooperation in the field of Climate Change. Contacts between MPs from the region, SADC-PF and MPs from the UK have been established and/or strengthened
  • MPs have asked questions to the relevant Ministers on implementation of Climate Change policies, increase of renewable energy share, and application of green technologies to new buildings, among others. MPs have pressured their Ministers to report back on the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen
  • Through detailed explanations during the workshops by academics and other experts and documents exchange, MPs of the committees dealing with Climate Change have increased knowledge on the International Negotiations and the various agreements and mechanisms on Climate Change
AWEPA will continue its efforts to scale up parliamentary actions for Climate Change mitigation and green economic development and will keep this issue high on its agenda within the MDG Programme.
  
HIV/AIDS and Orphans and Vulnerable Children 
Already for a number of years AWEPA has been working extensively on health issues, with a focus on HIV/AIDS and the issue of Orphans and Vulnerable Children.
 
In 2004 AWEPA launched a multi-year campaign on children and AIDS, in cooperation with UNICEF and others, to scale up the efforts of parliamentarians for children and AIDS responses. The campaign began in September 2004 with the Parliamentary Consultation on Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Cape Town, attended by representatives from 25 African and 15 European Parliaments. The conference resulted in the Cape Town Declaration, which contained guidelines on how African and European parliaments and parliamentarians, as well as regional parliaments and the donor community, can make a unique contribution to scaling up efforts on behalf of orphans and vulnerable children. In the years thereafter, a total of eight regional seminars on HIV/AIDS and OVC took place in East and Southern Africa, where in total some 500 parliamentarians from 19 African countries participated.
 
As a follow-up to these regional seminars, national follow-up workshops were organised by AWEPA. The results of these regional and national activities can be found in the field of legislation (e.g. Bills on Child Protection approved); Oversight/Scrutiny (e.g. establishment of parliamentary OVC Committees/Caucuses on HIV/AIDS); Budget (e.g. increase of budget allocated to OVC and transmittable diseases); and Representation/Outreach (e.g. parliamentarians conducted field visits to mobilise action for OVC).
 
In the MDG programme activities will focus on, among others, the thematic area of Health and Development, which includes the following MDGs:
  • Reduce Child Mortality (MDG 4)
  • Improve Maternal Health (MDG 5)
  • Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDG 6)
The Pan-African Parliament and the RPBs will each choose between the different options of thematic areas, based on their own priority and experiences. It is expected that the Health and Development sector will be one of the main focuses for the coming five years of the MDG programme. In this way AWEPA will continue its efforts to scale up parliamentary actions for vulnerable children and keep the issue of HIV/AIDS and OVC high on regional and national agendas in Africa and Europe.
 

Programme Partners

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