Democracy and Governance
INCREASED
INDEPENDENCE OF SELECTED GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS
Parliamentary Strengthening Program
For several years, USAID/Kenya implemented a civil society strategy.
This was informed by the belief that any improvements in the political
and economic environment in Kenya could be sustained in the long
run only by development of multiple and effective constituencies
for reform. As a result of increased pressure from civil society
for reform, USAID amended its strategic objective to include support
to selective institutions of governance to respond more effectively
to civil society. In particular, Parliament was singled out
as an institution that can represent civil demands for democratic
reform, generate necessary reform legislation and act as an overseer
of the executive. Moreover, the National Assembly was seen
as having considerable potential to contribute to Kenya's democratic
transition on the following grounds:
a) Since the 1997 elections, Parliament has shown notable signs
of progress - with some executive-backed legislation being amended
or rejected through efforts of some Parliamentarians.
b) The inter-party reforms negotiated in late 1997 re-established
the National Assembly's Committee system, which has the potential
to more effectively aggregate citizen input on legislation and public
policy. Moreover, half of the twelve nominated Parliamentary
seats established under the constitution were allocated to the opposition
(according to individual party strength).
c) Also significant was the passage of the Parliamentary Service
Commission Act in 1999, which substantially de-linked Parliament
from the Executive in financial and administrative terms.
d) The ongoing constitutional reform promises to even give more
powers to the Parliament. Other proposed reforms include:
curb on presidential power to dissolve Parliament, increased Parliamentary
authority over the national budget, and action by the Assembly to
implement the recommendations of its watchdog committees.
Despite the obvious progress made by Parliament in the past few
years, the Assembly’s functional autonomy and ability to perform
its multiple roles have continued to be constrained by other factors,
such as structural weaknesses, and the challenges of coalition building
within political parties, etc. As a representative body with
a legislative role, the Assembly is strategically placed to link
public will to government policy and effect genuine structural reforms
necessary to promote democratization. This, in turn, will
support a more broadly distributed institutional balance of power
within Kenya's political system.
Legislative Support Through Civil Society:
Some of the civil society that USAID has supported to implement
Parliamentary activities include the Institute of Policy Analysis
and Research (IPAR) to conduct policy research and analysis, the
Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to undertake budget analysis,
Transparency International (TI) to work with an association of parliamentarians
against corruption and the Center for Governance and Development
(CGD) analyze draft legislation and hold governance workshops, and
research corruption.
USAID's legislative support activities include:
* The anti-corruption work supported with economic support funds
to review reports of the Controller and Auditor General over the
past 10 years, and publicize the findings. In addition, support
the work of the Parliamentary anti-corruption committee in synthesizing
their report and drafting the Economic Crimes Bill.
* Support for the analyses of various bills pending before the
House. This entails holding seminars for business people,
MPs, CSOs and other interested individuals. Workshop findings
are synthesized into a Bill's Digest that is forwarded to all MPs.
This is supposed to improve quality of debate and the subsequent
legislation.
* Facilitate workshops for MPs mainly on topical issues - such
as economic decline and constitutional reform.
* Limited support to spearhead the establishment of the civil-society
based resource center.
* Provision of resource material for Parliament - in the absence
of staff support and facilities within Parliament. Support
in the past has included drafting of Bills and paying for experts
(e.g., the Parliamentary Service Commission Bill, Anti-Corruption
Bill, etc.).
* Organize exchange visits for MPs to learn best practices.
USAID has funded an exchange visit by the Parliamentary Anti-Corruption
Committee to Botswana.
* Projects aimed at raising interest among MPs and public on the
budgetary process and facilitate citizens' input. Organizing
open hearings where suggestions on what should go into the budget
will be made. In addition, a post-budget forum to analyze
the budget will be held a few weeks after budget presentation.
Because a big proportion of the work of the Parliament focuses
on the National Budget of Kenya, the major policy document of the
Kenyan Government, our resources have gone into supporting our partners
efforts to assist the Parliament to play a more effective role in
the budget process. But there is significant scope for their
playing a greater role.
State University of New York Program:
The USAID/K DG Strategy envisions support to select government
institutions which can increase accountability and oversight in
order to achieve sustainable reforms and accountable governance
to improve the balance of power among the institutions of government.
A 1998 DG assessment and subsequent developments convinced us that
there is scope for assistance to Parliament as a result of the structural
and political changes that had taken place in the parliamentary
arena. In August 2000, USAID signed a three-year contract
with the State University of New York, International Development
Group (SUNY) to act as an intermediary in the implementation of
a parliamentary strengthening program for Kenya. The purpose
of the program is to increase the National Assembly’s ability
to:
a) generate sound legislation that would have a positive impact
on the economic development and the democratization process in Kenya;
b) act as an arena for citizens’ input into public policy
and legislative formation and articulate the concerns of ordinary
citizens about important local and national issues; and
c) more effectively oversee and monitor the policies and actions
of the executive branch, particularly fiscal management.
With the passage of a constitutional amendment in late 1999, increasing
parliament’s structural autonomy, the Parliamentary Service
Commission (PSC) is responsible for the budget and management of
the National Assembly. The PSC designed a strategic plan to
guide Parliament’s development over the next twelve years
and requested the donor assistance in fine-tuning the plan.
SUNY used the PSC’s Plan as the basis for its assistance program.
From this broad program, SUNY identified areas that the U.S. Government
could support. These include: training for the parliamentary
committees and staff, arranging study tours for Members of Parliament
(MPs), linking MPs to experts who can provide information on public
policy and pending legislation, facilitating contacts between MPs
and interest groups, and addressing the long term need for a parliament-wide
management information system by providing computers and a
road map for long term IT support, supporting an internship program,
organizing forums for MPs, GOK representative from Kenya Revenue
Authority and Treasury to discuss national policy.
Coordinating Support to Parliament:
In order to enhance the impact of parliamentary support, USAID
has advised these partners to consider planning and executing programs
cooperatively, especially if they involve training MPs and parliamentary
staff. Consequently, our parliamentary program has a strong
emphasis on establishing linkages among the government, Parliament
and civil society.
We suggested that our partners use the government budget process
as one entry point for their work. As part of joint programming,
SUNY sponsors annually joint programs for MPs to discuss GOK budgets
including the Finance Bills. The purpose of the seminars is
to enhance the quality of parliamentary debate on the GOK budget
when it comes up for parliamentary debate early throughout the year.
One lesson learned is that Parliament requires expert knowledge
of economic issues/challenges facing the country. This hampers
their effectiveness in devising effective legislation, representing
their constituents and providing alternatives to the Government
of Kenya (GOK) programs. Given that the country is currently facing
an economic crisis, it is critical that the Mission provide MPs
as well as the GOK and civil society with opportunities for engaging
in a constructive dialogue in order to broaden the ownership of
economic and political reforms. The best way of achieving this is
to host discussions and seminars on key national issues so that
MPs, think-tanks and the GOK can discuss and exchange information.
Given the scope of possibility for parliamentary work and the important
role Parliament is likely to play in Kenya in the next few years,
our goal is make our combined parliamentary work more effective.
We also plan to expand the very successful work of IEA and CGD
through their budget hearing, economic governance and bills digest
program to allow citizens’ input into the budget process by
encouraging citizens groups to lobby MPs on various issues throughout
the budget cycle. We believe that by jointly planning support
to Parliament, our partners will be better placed to enhance Parliament’s
capacity for budget analysis and eventually strengthening Parliament’s
oversight and representation functions. We plan to repeat
the series of training programs for MPs on the budget cycle annually.
Ministry of Justice & Constitutional Affairs and the Department
of Governance & Ethics, Office of the President
With a positive democratic transition in Kenya and a new government
committed to economic governance, the promotion of transparency
in Kenya is a program area into which USAID is expanding.
The Mission is now receiving direct requests from the Government
of Kenya (GOK) to assist them in fighting corruption and the USAID
Administrator has shared our intention with the President of Kenya
to do just that. We anticipate working more directly with
the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs as well as the
Department of Governance and Ethics to strengthen and expand the
GOK’s own anti-corruption efforts. Along with other
donor organizations, USAID will be supporting the national anti-corruption
campaign, along with critical support to legal sector reforms that
will ensure a more favorable environment for the promotion of transparency
and accountability throughout the public sector.
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