Parliamentary Advocacy Project (PAP)
The Parliamentary Advocacy Project (PAP) seeks to work towards the strengthening of parliamentary processes in Ghana by undertaking four main activities: the facilitation and aggregation of civic input into the legislative process; monitoring the performance of Parliament by tracking Bills and Regulations; undertaking collaborative research with the Parliamentary Research Department (PRD) and facilitating the process for the introduction of a Private Member’s Bill (PMB) in Parliament. These four main goals are consistent with the enhanced strategic goals of the Parliament of Ghana which include:
- Improving the performance and management of Parliament’s legislative functions;
- Enhancing Parliament’s representational functions by making it more relevant to the needs of the public.
- Improving and strengthening Parliament’s oversight role over the executive and other branches of government;
- Strengthening parliamentary systems for delivery of services and improving the physical, logistical and information technology assets of Parliament to sustain and transform service delivery.
Key achievements among others are a heightened awareness of the dismal performance of Parliament and the PRD and a gradual realisation of ways of improving it. This eventually culminated in the adoption and modification of a tracking sheet to monitor aspects of the performance of Members of Parliament as well as the proposal of a Research Model for the PRD that is expected to address several of the stumbling blocks to satisfactory delivery of services. One other notable impact has been an improvement in the willingness of Committees of Parliament particularly the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs (CLPA) to accept civic input from civil society. Finally, it is significant to note that the quality of Bills other than budget related Bills, international agreement related Bills and Bills whose main aim was to preserve the status quo (such Bills were passed as a matter of course with such short notice and so quickly that it was often impossible to make input) greatly improved due to our efforts. Some of the Bills into which civic input was made included the Whistleblower Bill, District Court Rules, Anti-Terrorism Bill, Transfer of Convicted Persons Bill, National Accreditation Board Bill, Chieftaincy Bill, Alternative Dispute Resolution Bill, Geneva Convention and the Human Trafficking (Amendment) Bill.