The Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA)and the Ten State Assemblies of Southern Sudan
Last Updated on Thursday, 06 September 2012 14:25 Written by Communications Intern Thursday, 17 February 2011 10:20
Caption: Rt. Hon. Deputy Speaker Daniel Awet Akot seated in between AWEPA President, Ms. Miet Smet and former Prime Minister of Belgium, Mr. Wilfried Martens, accompanied by Chairpersons and Deputy Chairpersons of various Committees and Senior Parliamentary Staff of the National Legislative Assembly after a workshop on Strategic Plan development.
Political Coordinator
Dr. Jan Nico Scholten (Netherlands)
Background
Achieving peace and improving democratic governance in South Sudan constitute the most important challenges for leaders and development partners; the attainment of which will result in poverty alleviation, improvement of human rights, and for South Sudan, movement towards economic development.
The National Legislative Assembly has a critical role to play in the enactment of relevant legislation, carrying out government oversight and ensuring effective representation.
The capacity building programme for the South Sudan Legislative Assembly includes, among others, general and specialized trainings, technical consultancies, study visits and attachments, participation in parliamentary conferences, community outreach visits, legislative support, publications, media involvement and provision of books and reference materials for the NLA Library. The duration of the programme was 14 months.
Objectives
The Parliamentary Capacity Building programme, implemented by AWEPA in close cooperation with the National Legislative Assembly in South Sudan has contributed to the overall objective of promoting peace, improving democracy and good governance in South Sudan; while recognising that democracy, good governance and the improvement of human rights must be addressed if peace is to be sustainable.
The programme and its activities served the specific objective of improving the capacity of the South Sudan National Legislative Assembly to respond to the challenges it faces in the discharge of its legislative, oversight and representative functions. Thus, it contributed to building a strong, institutionalised legislative branch of government in South Sudan through:
- Capacity building through trainings, attachments, study visits and benchmarking programs
- Legislative support
- Publications and media involvement
- Community outreach programs
- A five-year NLA Strategic Plan 2011 – 2016 for the South Sudan National Legislative Assembly (NLA) developed and distributed to all stakeholders; a Mission, Vision, Core Values and Strategic Objectives of the Assembly are clearly understood
- Increased number of bills enacted into law from improved capacity of NLA members in legislation and bills scrutiny
- Members have improved standards of debate and questions asked in the House and Committees due to international exposure, benchmarking visits and training
- Members have improved level of representation and consultation as a result of the community outreach visits, media action and publications
- Women parliamentarians have improved capacity in legislation and advocacy
- On a regional and international level, Members have established relations with Members of African and European parliaments and exchanged best practices
- Members and staff have improved capacity to carry out budget scrutiny and government oversight
- Improved capacity of the staff NLA to provide legislative and administrative support to the Assembly due to training, study visits and attachments
- The development of human resource policies on recruitment and selection, performance management, and training and development
- Overall consensus on the draft five-year strategic plan obtained
- First draft of the five-year strategic plan adopted by the senior leadership, MPs and staff of the NLA
- The five-year Strategic Plan of the NLA officially launched in the Assembly in the presence of all stakeholders
Impacts
Example Activity
Development of the first-ever Strategic Plan for the National Legislative Assembly
AWEPA facilitated the development of a five-year strategic plan for the National Legislative Assembly (2011–2016). The consultative process was used to develop the plan in which the leadership and senior managers of the NLA were involved in a sensitisation workshop in which key issues for consideration in the Strategic Plan were agreed upon.
A further workshop to for the presentation of the first draft Strategic Plan for the NLA to the Political Leadership of NLA, the Assembly Business Committee and senior staff of the Assembly was conducted from 24 to 27 August 2012. The purpose of the workshop was to obtain comments on the draft strategic plan and gain consensus from the NLA prior to finalisation of the five-year strategic plan.
The consultative workshops attracted participants that included; the Rt. Hon. Deputy Speaker of the NLA, Leader of the Opposition, Government and Opposition Chief Whips in Parliament, Chairpersons and Deputy Chairpersons of Committees, Members of Parliament and Senior Managers of the Assembly led by the Clerk to the NLA. The participants were able to propose additional priority areas for inclusion in the strategic plan as a basis for attaining the mission and vision of the Assembly.
At the end of the consultative process a workshop for the launch of the five-year NLA Strategic Plan 2011–2016 was organised on 12 December 2011. The purpose of the workshop was for the Consultants to present the Strategic Plan to the Assembly membership, other stakeholders and development partners and donors on the six strategic objectives of the Assembly that were set out to achieve its mission, vision and strategic goals. The purpose of the Strategic Plan is to set the institutional and infrastructural development plan of the NLA.
The outcomes of the activity on the Strategic Plan for the NLA are as follows:
As a result, the programme has led to the development of a Five-year Strategic Plan (2011–2012) for the NLA developed and distributed to all stakeholders.
