Benchmarking and Self-Assessment for Democratic Parliaments (Directions in Development - Public Sector Governance)

Mitchell O'Brien,Rick Stapenhurst,Lisa von Trapp

ISBN 10: 1464803277 / ISBN 13: 9781464803277

Published by World Bank Publications 2016-03-30, 2016

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Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9781464803277

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Benchmarking and Self-Assessment for Democratic Parliaments (Directions in Development - Public Sector Governance)
• Publisher: World Bank Publications 2016-03-30
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1464803277
• ISBN 13: 9781464803277
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

With international focus on good governance and parliamentary effectiveness, a standards-based approach involving benchmarks and assessment frameworks has emerged to evaluate parliament's performance and guide its reforms. The World Bank's has been a leader in the development of these frameworks, stewarding a global multi-stakeholder process aimed at enhancing consensus around parliamentary benchmarks and indicators with international organizations and parliaments across the world. The results so far, some of which are captured in this book, are encouraging: countries as diverse as Australia, Canada, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Zambia have used these frameworks for self-evaluation and to guide efficiency-driven reforms. Donors and practitioners, too, are finding the benchmarks useful as baselines against which they can assess the impact of their parliamentary strengthening programs. The World Bank itself is using these frameworks to surface the root causes of performance problems and explore how to engage with parliamentary institutions in order to achieve better results. The World Bank can identify opportunities to help improve the oversight function of parliament, thus holding governments to account, giving 'voice' to the poor and disenfranchised, and improving public policy formation in order to achieve a nation's development goals. In doing so, we are helping make parliaments themselves more accountable to citizens and more trusted by the public.