Conclusions and recommendations
1. DFID is showing
global leadership in different initiatives to promote better governance
and address a number of the key risks in global development. Its
work ranges from lobbying for goals on accountability in the post-2015
MDG framework to developing its own sophisticated country-level
anti-corruption strategies. We commend DFID for these initiatives.
We urge the Government to continue to press for "accountable,
inclusive governments, including strong parliaments" in the
post-2015 MDG development framework. (Paragraph 15)
2. As Lord Norton
points out, donors have spent great sums on programmes supporting
elections, but these have limited value if they are not followed
by effective parliaments. Moreover, parliaments are at the centre
of a number of DFID's priorities, including poverty reduction
and economic growth, security, accountability, transparency and
anti-corruption work DFID is recognising the importance of parliaments
and the political context in which development operates, but we
believe DFID could do more to make the most of the opportunities
offered by parliamentary strengthening. DFID needs to consider
whether it has the resources, approach, and systems to maximise
the value that parliamentary strengthening offers. 2015 is the
800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, and 750th anniversary of
the Simon de Montfort Parliament. As the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office witness highlighted, this provides an opportunity to reaffirm
the value of parliaments in the contemporary world, but also to
reassess the UK's role in promoting democracy and parliaments
around the world. (Paragraph 16)
3. We recommend
that DFID (Paragraph 17)
· recognise
the role of parliaments in its work on poverty reduction, human
rights, equality, economic growth, security, transparency, accountability
and anti-corruption;
· in particular,
include the role of the national Parliament in each of its country-level
anti-corruption strategies when it next revises them
· report to
national Parliaments and their relevant departmental committees
its sectoral spending in countries where it has bilateral programmes
from 2014-15 onwards, and include its intention to do so in its
partnership agreements with recipient countries.
4. We welcome DFID's
increased commitment to parliamentary strengthening. We agree
with DFID that its relatively low levels of spending on parliamentary
strengthening do not necessarily mean it is a low priority; we
are aware that inexpensive projects can be very effective. However,
the fact that DFID does not have any governance performance indicators
specifically focused on Parliament and that its Annual Report
does not refer to parliamentary strengthening suggest this area
of work is not a priority. We recommend that DFID: (Paragraph
30)
· develop
a Key Performance Indicator for parliamentary strengthening in
its governance pillar for its Governance, Open Societies and Anti-Corruption
Operational Plan, as it has for elections and for accountability
institutions more generally, that reflects its ambitions for parliamentary
strengthening, particularly for its work with parliamentary committees.
· conduct
an annual analysis of its global spending on parliamentary strengthening
and other areas governance and its performance to ensure its spending
and programmes reflect its priorities.
· include
an analysis of its parliamentary strengthening work in its Annual
Report.
· ensure that
the resources devoted to parliamentary strengthening compared
to elections and other areas of governance reflect its assessment
of their respective importance.
5. We recommend
that DFID develop a better understanding of the total resources
it is using in its parliamentary strengthening and other governance
work, including staff time, and that it assess the viability of
improving its systems to allow this, rather than relying on time-consuming
manual exercises with country offices. While it requires a better
understanding of the resources it devotes to parliamentary strengthening
it is clear that DFID is one the largest spenders in this area
in the world. We recommend that DFID have more than one specialist
working full-time on parliamentary strengthening and that DFID
ensure that all its governance advisers improve their knowledge
of parliaments and improve their links with the UK Parliament
and other Westminster-based institutions.
(Paragraph 31)
6. In conclusion,
while DFID has significant numbers of parliamentary strengthening
programmes, in 2013-14 it only spent money on parliamentary strengthening
in a minority of its bilateral programmes. We recommend that
the DFID/FCO How to Note in its final form adopt a more positive
tone and stress the desirability of including parliamentary strengthening
programmes in all its priority countries except where there are
very powerful arguments for not doing so. We welcome DFID's recognition
that political co-operation is an essential part of parliamentary
strengthening; it must not shy away from working with political
parties. (Paragraph 76)
7. DFID has few
Committee strengthening programmes and we welcome the Minister's
support for work in this area. We recommend that DFID include
a parliamentary dimension in all major development programmes
(e.g. support for the health committee in a health programme)
for any programme above a certain threshold (e.g. £10 million).
It should be one of DFID's key goals to help to create effective
parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive, especially in the policy
areas in which UK aid is spent; this could strengthen the in-country
checks on how effectively British taxpayers money contributes
to the achievement of the country's development plans.
(Paragraph 77)
8. There is increasing
recognition by practitioners and donors, including DFID, of the
characteristics of best practice in parliamentary strengthening
programmes. We particularly commend: (Paragraph 78)
· long term programmes
with the ability to respond quickly and flexibly when opportunities
arise.
· combining parliamentary
strengthening with associated relevant work, particularly with
the media;
· however, combined
work it is not necessary part of parliamentary programmes and
such work should not be a substitute for them;. it can also be
appropriate to do strengthening projects working just with parliaments.
· political awareness
in the design and execution of programmes- it cannot be a simple
technocratic exercise.
· recognition
that multi-party politics gives voters greater choice and therefore
greater leverage over their MPs and governments. This, of course,
makes inter-party rivalry a common and welcome feature of a healthy
parliament. DFID's parliamentary strengthening work should
not shy away from working with political parties.
9. We welcome DFID's
policy shift towards a more political approach to development,
and the fact that it is making work with parliaments a higher
priority, but we note that there is some concern that while DFID
is proud of the political economy analysis it undertakes, its
monitoring, results and logframe processes prevent it from making
full use of the analysis in the way it implements programmes.
We welcome DFID's recognition of this and recognition that it
needs to make changes in the way it evaluates programmes. We
recommend that DFID ensure it has the right processes and incentives
for staff to implement programmes with the characteristics described
in the chapter. We recommend that DFID and the FCO develop a long
term and realistic approach to evaluating parliamentary strengthening
programmes. We recommend that DFID and the FCO jointly undertake
a study of what they have funded and what has worked. (Paragraph
79)
10. While there can
be excellent co-ordination between the FCO, DFID and others locally,
as we saw in Burma, this is not always the case centrally. We
welcome the Minister's recognition of the need for discussions
between the FCO, DFID and others, clarifying how HMG sees its
role in parliamentary strengthening and its priorities, geographically
and thematically, but we recommend that the Government go further
establishing a strategy for promoting democracy and parliaments
to help coordinate the wide variety of UK bodies and set priorities
for those working on parliamentary strengthening. We endorse Alistair
Burt's proposal that there should be more discussions between
Government and practitioners about these issues. (Paragraph
80)
11. DFID puts a high
value on good project management skills and prefers to commission
large governance projects of which parliamentary strengthening
is a part. As a result it tends not to commission small specialist
organisations, but provides large contracts to big sometimes non-specialist
organisations which subcontract to others. (Paragraph 106)
12. We see the advantages
of using large organisations such as the UNDP for its parliamentary
strengthening work in some circumstances, e.g. where a several
donors are involved or in some FCAs. We were, however, surprised
to discover the extent to which DFID uses large US organisations,
which are alleged to have an unfair advantage because of the CEPPs
system; this runs the risk that UK taxpayers' money is being used
to promote a switch from parliamentary to less accountable, US-style
Presidential systems. We recommend that DFID support the development
of world-class suppliers in the UK, and over a five year period
substantially increase its use of UK suppliers where there is
a clear demand for them. (Paragraph 107)
13. DFID does not
know how its commissioning is affecting providers in the parliamentary
strengthening sector; we recommend that it acquires this information
and tracks which subcontractors are receiving its funds.
(Paragraph 108)
14. The EU spends
significant sums on parliamentary strengthening; the UK taxpayer
contributes about 15% of this. We are seriously concerned by the
criticisms we heard of the EU commissioning in this area, including
the use of non-specialist contractors which are adept at navigating
the institutions labyrinthine procurement procedures and its willingness
to pay far more than is needed. DFID points out that the Multilateral
Aid Review gave the EU a good rating, but this does not mean that
it is good across the board. We recommend that DFID examine
the allegations and in the light of its findings press for reform.
(Paragraph 109)
15. We recommend
that DFID commission more expert organisations; and take a more
hands-on approach to managing parliamentary work. We recommend
that (Paragraph 110)
· a joint
DFID/FCO fund be established to commission expert organisations;
this would also enable work to be commissioned at short notice
when opportunities arise. A joint fund would combine the differing
and important skills of the two departments. The fund could be
on a similar scale to the £21.4 million which BBC Media Action
received as a global grant from DFID in 2013-14.
· when DFID
has to commission larger suppliers, it nominate expert organisations
to which larger suppliers should sub-contract; we welcome UNDPs
willingness to do this, but DFID needs to ensure that too much
is not top-sliced by the larger supplier.
· DFID improve
its ability to act as an intelligent commissioner of parliamentary
strengthening both in country and centrally; it should increase
the number of specialist experts at the centre and ensure its
governance advisers are aware of the importance of parliaments
and develop closer links with the UK Parliament.
· DFID support
the development of world class suppliers in the UK.
16. The Westminster
'brand' is a national asset and Westminster institutions are in
demand, especially, but not only, in countries with a Westminster-style
parliamentary system. Moreover, Westminster institutions are well
placed to work with 'southern' partners. However, DFID is failing
to make adequate use of Westminster-based institutions. This is
largely a matter of scale. DFID is used to working with large
contractors; the average budget for the 37 DFID programmes which
include a parliamentary strengthening component is £14.1
million, which is far larger than the total annual budgets for
all of the Westminster organisations combined. In addition, sometimes
its governance advisers' rarely have a parliamentary background
and lack knowledge of Westminster. We believe that DFID has failed
to support the development of a world beating UK capacity to strengthen
parliamentary institutions abroad, and have failed to capitalise
on the global respect and demand for the Westminster brand. We
believe that DFID should address these failings. We recommend
that (Paragraph 126)
· DFID and
the FCO recognise that the Westminster brand is a national asset
for its parliamentary strengthening work and make this clear in
advice to its governance advisers, particularly in their joint
How to Note.
· DFID make
more use of Westminster organisations, especially where there
is a demand for their expertise.
· DFID should
set a goal for the delivering a significantly greater proportion
of its parliamentary strengthening work by UK-based institutions
within 5 years
17. However, changes
should also be made at Westminster. DFID and the FCO are confronted
by a host of institutions at Westminster. We recommend that (Paragraph
127)
· the organisations
at the Houses of Parliament be better coordinated with a single
point of contact. Consideration should be given to revisiting
the establishment of an International Relations Directorate
· the Houses
of Parliament and other UK institutions ensure that they have
adequate capacity to undertake parliamentary strengthening work
as this grows. The Public Accounts Commission consider whether
the NAO has adequate capacity to do parliamentary strengthening
as Parliament directs
· consideration
be given to the establishment of a Westminster 'hub' which would
bring together UK institutions with different kinds of expertise,
including the media, the law, and financial scrutiny, and enable
them to cooperate rather than compete, and would be able to undertake
larger projects
· as DFID
places great emphasis on 'its suppliers' demonstrating evidence
of their impact, Westminster institutions work with DFID to establish
sensible non-bureaucratic ways to demonstrate the value and impact
of their work.
18. We welcome
the changes which WFD is undertaking under its new CEO. To assist
these reforms we recommend WFD form closer links with the Houses
of Parliament; and that options be explored to second staff from
Parliament to WFD and vice versa. (Paragraph
128)
19. During 2015,
the FCO and DFID should use the occasion of the anniversaries
of the Magna Carta and the Simon De Montfort Parliament to promote
the rule of law, the importance of parliaments and the value of
Westminster organisations. (Paragraph
129)
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