Udenrigsudvalget 2009-10
URU Alm.del Bilag 37
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PARLIAMENTARY NEWSLETTERFIELD VISIT TO MONGOLIAThirteen Parliamentarians – fromAsia, Africa and Europe – led by Dr.Laode Ida, Deputy Speaker of the In-donesian Senate, visited Mongoliafrom 26 to 30 October. The delega-tion focused on mining and extractiveindustries revenue management, theimpact of the global financial crisison Mongolia’s economy and develop-ment, and good governance and socialaccountability.“According to a Mongolian saying,seeing one time is better than listeninga 1000 times.” said World Bank Coun-try Manager to Mongolia, ArshadSayed, when he briefed the parliamen-tarians at the World Bank office. Thedelegation had the opportunity to visitWorld Bank supported projects in andaround Ulaanbaatar and met with theChairman of the Great State Ikh Huralof Mongolia (Parliament of Mongo-lia), D. Demberel, and with Mongolianparliamentarians. The delegation alsodiscussed public hearing mechanismswith Mongolian CSOs and visited theParliamentary Research Center andNational Legal Institute. On October29, the delegates participated in theEconomic Policy Conference, whichfocused on how to manage the globalfinancial and economic crisis.“This field visit was a unique opportu-nity for our delegation to see how theWorld Bank and other developmentstakeholders are cooperating withMongolia on its development efforts,”

November 2009said MP Laode Ida, Board Memberof the Parliamentary Network on theWorld Bank (PNoWB). “Parliamen-tarians from the North and the Southtook this opportunity to learn morefrom each other and to share their ownexperiences with colleagues fromthe Mongolian Parliament”. BesidesPNoWB, the Asian Forum of Parlia-mentarians on Population and Devel-opment (AFPPD) also partnered onidentifying participants for the visit.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Parliamentary Field Visit to Mongolia

TABLE OF CONTENT- Feature Stories- From the Regions- Upcoming activitiesfor Parliamentarians- Publications- NewsPage 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 4

n October 24 World Bank Man-aging Director Graeme Wheeleraddressed 120 legislators from thetop 16 major economies parliaments(Brazil, Canada, China, EuropeanParliament, France, Germany, In-dia, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, S.Korea,Mexico, Russia, South Africa, UnitedKingdom, United States of America)members of the Danish Parliament andindividual expert legislators invitedfrom Colombia, Cameroon & DRC,gathering in the Danish Parliament forthe GLOBE Copenhagen LegislatorsForum. The Forum was organized inassociation with the Com+ Allianceof Communications for SustainableDevelopment that sponsored 20 jour-nalists from emerging economies anddeveloping countries to participate.The World Bank is an active memberof COM+.The Copenhagen Legislators Fo-rum Aims to i) deliver cross-partysupport from the parliaments of the

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major economies of the G8 & Eu-ropean Parliament, Australia, Bra-zil, China, India, Indonesia, MexicoSouth Africa and South Korea for anambitious post-2012 climate changeagreement; ii) agree that legislatorscan drive the move to a low carboneconomy, irrespective of the outcomein Copenhagen; and iii) agree a setof ‘legislative principles’ to guidedomestic climate change legislation.World Bank Lead Energy Specialistfor the Latin America and the Carib-bean Todd Johnson also addressed themeeting. He presented the first studyon low carbon paths for MX. This isthe first in a series that includes Bra-zil and other emerging economies.More information at www.globeinter-national.org/copenhagen

department. The EXT ParliamentaryTeam and the World Bank Institutealso addressed the MPs, together withthe Head of Secretariat of the Parlia-mentary Network on the World Bank.For more information please contact[email protected]

FROM THE REGIONSPlease find below a selection of ac-tivities undertaken by country officesover the last month

mentarians from Togo, led by thePresident of the Finance and Exchang-es Committee, visited the World Bankand the IMF in Washington from Octo-ber 20 to 24. Discussion topics includ-ed the need for training and capacitybuilding programs for the members ofthe Finance Committee and better un-derstanding of the World Bank’s stra-tegic tools for assisting partner coun-tries. The parliamentarians met amongothers with several Executive Direc-tors and senior staff from the Africa

ogo- A delegation of four parlia-

within the framework of the Civ-il Society Fund Program, the TurkeyCountry Office has allocated a total ofUS$ 45,000 to be distributed as grantsfor the implementation of projects fo-cused on ’Civic Engagement for theEmpowerment of Women’. One of thewinner NGOs - the Legislation Associ-ation (YASADER) - used their $ 5,000grant money to put together a Seminaron ‘Strengthening the Involvementof NGOs working for Women in theLegislative Process’. This Seminartook place on November 5-6, at theGrand National Assembly of Turkey(TBMM) as YASADER managedto organize the event under the aus-pices of the Parliamentary Commis-sion for Equal Opportunities for Menand Women. The two day event waswell attended by a group of around100 people and among the speak-ers were Members of the Parliament,Academia, NGOs and the bureau-crats working on the topic of “Gen-der Equality”. This is the first timea Turkish NGO implements a proj-ect together with the Parliament andwith the support of the World Bank.For more information, please contact[email protected]

urkey-In Fiscal Year 2009

the European Parliament De-velopment Committee met with theWB office in Bangladesh during itsmission to Bangladesh on Novem-ber 1-3. The Bank country office inBangladesh hosted the delegation fora brief on the Bank program in Ban-gladesh (rural electricity, rural roads,social investment to give a few point-ers), and provided an analysis of thecountry’s situation. The delegation’smain issues of interest were climatechange and the problem of food se-curity. The mission opened the doorfor further cooperation between theBank and the EU on South Asia.For more information please contact[email protected]

angladesh– A delegation from

organized a public consultationon the World Bank Environment Strat-egy with Brussels based stakeholdershosted a the European Parliament on

russels-The World Bank Group

October 8. The meeting, hosted byEva Joly, chair of the developmentcommittee and Jo Leinen, chair ofthe environment committee, drew anaudience of over 140 participants, in-

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cluding key MEPs and representativeof industry. The consultation processstarted in June will allow stakeholdersto provide inputs on the conceptual-ization of the full WBG EnvironmentStrategy, expected to be approvedand completed by December 2010.More information at www.worldbank.org/environmentconsultations

ish international development policy.As Spain builds up its aid program,the involvement of Spanish MPs inaid policy-making also increases. Inparticular, the Parliamentary Com-mittee for Development participatesin the process of setting global de-velopment priorities and deciding an-nual strategies and budget allocations.For more information please contact[email protected]

sentatives from the World BankCountry office in Senegal and the Par-is based Parliamentary team met withMPAmadou Ndiaye Lo, Vice Presidentof the National Assembly of Senegal,Vice President of the Foreign AffairsCommittee and the Chair of the lo-cal chapter of the Parliamentary Net-work on the World Bank (PNoWB).In a two hour meeting, they agreedon a joint year program of activities,which includes two seminars, localfield visits and a briefing by the Coun-try Director to the National Assembly.For more information please contact[email protected]

enegal-On October 31, repre-

Seychelles (Implementation StrategyNote), Sierra Leone (Country Assis-tance Strategy) where a series of na-tional consultations for the AfricanDevelopment Bank (ADB) and theWorld Bank Group Joint AssistanceStrategy (JAS) have been held, aswell as an event specifically for Par-liament (which also covered the newAnti-Money Laundering Law), Serbia(CAS-Progress Report), Tajikistan(Country Assistance Strategy).

SELECTION OF UPCOMINGACTIVITIES FORPARLIAMENTARIANSFor more information on these ac-tivities, please contact evandamme@worldbank.org. E-courses can be foundon www.parliamentarystrengthening.org

31 October 31, 2,7,9,14,16,21November Parliamentary PressCorps Training Video Confer-ence

his course will provide technicaltraining for the Ghana press corpson parliamentary structure and proce-dures.

Consultations on CountryAssistance Strategies (CAS)

October-November E-learningcourse on parliament and themediahe course Role of Parliaments inPromoting an Information RichSociety helps parliaments to facili-tate the flow of information betweenparliament and the community via themedia

pain– A group of Spanish MPsvisited the World Bank HeadQuarters on November 5 to meet withBank Senior Management as part ofa tour of several international organi-zations. The group included the Presi-dent of the Spanish ParliamentaryCommittee for Development Coop-eration, Ms. Delia Blanco, and partyspeakers of the Committee. Hosted bythe ED’s office, Parliamentarians hada chance to learn about the Bank’srole in addressing the crisis and aboutkey initiatives of interest for Span-

CAS

CountryAssistanceStrategy

he World Bank regularly engagesparliamentarians and other con-stituencies during consultations on theCountry Assistance Strategies. In No-vember, Country Assistance Strategiesfor which consultations with nationalparliaments were held, will be sent tothe Board for the following countries:Belarus (CAS-Progress Report), Kyr-gyz Republic (CAS-Progress Report,presentations to MPs planned afterthe CAS-PR has gone to the Board),

9-12 November Seminar on theRole of Public Accounts Com-mittees and Auditors Generals,Dhaka, Bangladesh

his Seminar will combine theo-retical and practical aspects ofPublic Accounts Committees and ad-dress performance, Auditors General,benchmarking and standards, nationaland regional associations and countryaction plans.

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19-20 November Pacific Bench-marks Workshop, Cook Islands

PUBLICATIONSDevelopment Outreach: Fragility& Conflict

NEWSOutside Review Supports BankGroup Reform

he aim of the workshop, orga-nized in partnership with CPAand UNDP, is to bring together Speak-ers and Clerks of Pacific Parliamentsto finalize and endorse Pacific Bench-marks for Democratic Legislatures

30 November – 3 DecemberPresentation of the Disaster RiskReduction Facility, Luanda

aroj Jha, Programme ManagerGFDRR, has been invited to theEU - Africa Caribbean and PacificJoint Parliamentary Assembly for apresentation on the Global Facility forDisaster Risk Reduction

recently completed external re-view of the Bank Group’s gov-ernance, headed by former MexicanPresident Ernesto Zedillo, providesa series of recommendations sup-porting further governance reforms,commends the Bank for expand-ing initiatives during the financialcrisis, and supports strengthen-ing the Bank’s financial capacity.More information at http://sitere-sources.worldbank.org/NEWS/Resources/WBGovernance-C O M M I S S I O N R E P O RT. p d fPlease find the latest information onWB reforms at http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/worldbankreform/

30 November – 4 December Fieldvisit to Burkina Faso

he Burkina Faso Country Office,the World Bank ParliamentaryRelations Team and the ParliamentaryNetwork on the World Bank (PNoWB)are preparing a Parliamentary Fieldvisit to Burkina Faso.

Southern Political Science Asso-ciation - PAC Workshop - Janu-ary 7-9, 2010 in Atlanta, GA

BI is organizing a panel at theSouthern Political Science As-sociation Annual Conference whichwill review Public Accounts Commit-tee (PAC) benchmarking analysis forthe Pacific, South Asia, British Isles,Canada and Nigerian States. Feed-back received will be used to shapethe next stage of WBI’s ParliamentaryBenchmarking Program

ragile and conflict-affected statesare not new, but the challengesthey pose have moved to the top of thedevelopment agenda in recent years.Experience has shown that the task ofmoving a poor, conflict-affected stateout of fragility is a complex, difficult,and long-term project. In many cases,like in Afghanistan, gains have beenhard-won, slow and uncertain. Never-theless, recent history offers groundsfor optimism. The October issue ofDevelopment Outreach looks at whatinternational organizations and bilat-eral donors can really do to help fragileand conflict-affected states overcomesocietal tension and violent conflicts,and build the strategies, coalitions andcapacity required to create conditionsfor growth and sustained development.More information at http://wbi.world-bank.org/wbi/devoutreach/

Disclosure Policy Review andGlobal Consultations

s part of a comprehensive reviewof its disclosure policy, the Bankis proposing to shift its approach todisclosure from today’s policy, whichspells out what information the Bankdiscloses (a “positive list”), to one inwhich the Bank would disclose anyinformation in its possession that isnot on a list of exceptions. The guid-ing principles and key elements of theproposed policy are discussed in anewly revised approach paper, whichincorporates the results of extensiveconsultations.More information at http://go.worldbank.org/FSBLXEWJ50

For more information on parliamentarians and the World Bank, please visitwww.worldbank.org/parliamentariansFor comments about the newsletter, please contact

Esther van Damme

at[email protected]