New publication: Support to Legislatures

Support to democratic governance in developing countries increased after 1990. It is gradually seen less as a technical exercise and more as a challenging, politically sensitive area of cooperation. Norway has supported the strengthening of democratic governance institutions with approximately 12 billion kroner in the last ten years, and as seen in this study a relatively small share was allocated to legislatures.

The main purpose of this study was to review international experiences, accumulated to date, regarding what works and not and how/why, when it comes to support to legislative assemblies in partner countries. A secondary purpose was to provide a systematic overview of Norwegian assistance in this field since mid-1990s, as there is no such overview per today.

The study of experiences discusses different models of legislatures and political and electoral systems, with particular emphasis on fragile states. It also presents an overview of agencies specialised in this field, and of trends of donor support.

The authors find relatively few systematic evaluations of the results of support to legislatures, but identify some lessons from the literature for future work in this area: 1) understand political economy, 2) have a long-term, comprehensive approach, 3) mobilise sufficient expertise, and 4) establish (in the case of Norway) strategic partnerships.

The Evaluation Department commissioned the study as a basis for future evaluations in this area. We hope that the report can be of use to others that are engaged in this field.