The Parliamentary Centre and Poverty Reduction

In partnership with the Canadian International Development Agency, the World Bank Institute and the United Nations Development Program, among other institutions, the Parliamentary Centre launched Parliament and Poverty Reduction in April 2000 with an on-line Parliamentary Development Forum Discussion. Drawing on this discussion, 15 parliamentarians from around the world then met in Canada for the 2000 Laurentian Seminar, on "Parliamentarians and Policies to Reduce Poverty". During the week, participants discussed face to face the practical ways in which Parliamentarians can assist in poverty reduction.

This set off an intensive consultation process by internet, through three video-conferences in Asia and Africa, and then via a week-long seminar in Vienna to help plan a World Bank Institute-Parliamentary Centre course on the PRSP Process. Experienced senior parliamentarians, parliamentary experts and World Bank and Parliamentary Centre staff analysed Parliament and poverty reduction, and how to increase parliaments' involvement in the PRSP.

The lessons from all this work, plus the basis for future course presentations, came together in a Handbook for Parliamentarians on Policies to Reduce Poverty. ( PDF File)

The 2001-02 program then implemented pilot projects in Ghana, Ethiopia and Cambodia:

Four weeks of video-conferences strengthened four key committees in Ghana – Finance, Public Accounts, Local Government and Rural Development, and Gender and Children; these committees insisted on a greater role in final review of the Ghana Poverty Strategy – improving the plan by stressing a smaller number of priorities.
In Ethiopia, the Budget and Economic Affairs committees were beneficiaries of the course. A key result was Budget Committee work to monitor public PRSP consultations in the countryside, to assure that poorer Ethiopians were participating fully.
Cambodia involved both Senate and House Banking and Finance committees and used direct inputs during the course by civil society groups of poorer Cambodians from different regions and occupations. The two committees agreed to work closely with local Cambodian experts to provide strong monitoring of the ongoing PRSP process.

Network links are now being developed amongst economic committees across Africa, to share lessons learned, plan joint training initiatives, and use special workshops to probe key issues in poverty reduction (in partnership with African policy institutes.)

Supported by the new Africa-Canada Parliamentary Strengthening Program under CIDA's Canada Fund for Africa, the new Poverty Reduction Parliamentary Network includes key poverty-related committees from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The network was officially launched on November 7-8, 2003, in Tamale, Ghana coinciding with the start of the network's main activity - an ambitious MPs and staff training and internship program implemented by the Institute for Policy Alternatives (IPA), a local policy institute. The training and internship program also involve civil society groups in order to increase capacity and understanding of poverty-related committee members in their role in local monitoring of poverty measures.

Research Documents:

Poverty and Conflict in Africa: Explaining a Complex Relationship
Parliamentarians and Poverty Reduction in Niger (available in French only)

For further information please contact Rasheed Draman, Project Coordinator working on Poverty Reduction in the Africa Program: DramaR@parl.gc.ca




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