Parliament partners with world renowned Pardee Centre for international futures in the United States of America
Parliament of South Africa and the world acclaimed Frederick S Pardee Centre for International Futures that is based in Denver University in America, are working on a partnership agreement aimed at enhancing long range strategic planning for shaping and directing human development.
This is the product of a visit to the Pardee Centre in Colorado by a six member delegation of Parliament led by Secretary to Parliament, Mr Gengezi Mgidlana last week.
Mr Mgidlana says the engagements with the Pardee Centre were eye-opening, empowering and setting a framework for collaboration that will greatly benefit Parliament’s efforts to build a member centric administration that provides higher quality support services to Members of Parliament.
One of the new models adopted by the Parliament of South Africa is a longer range planning framework that takes into account global, continental, regional and national development goals as contained in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), African Union’s 2063 vision and the National Development Plan (NDP).
The partnership of South Africa’s Parliament with the Pardee Centre for International Futures, will help the country tap into cutting edge knowledge bases and methodologies adopted by the world renowned centre, which are already used by over 186 countries of the world.
Mr Mgidlana says, Parliament is the best platforms for citizen direct and indirect participation in ensuring that government is better able to move with speed to meet global, continental and national development targets through its oversight and accountability functions over the executive.
He says the capacity of the administration of Parliament to improve service offerings to Members of Parliament is one of the priorities of the fifth Parliament that will be boosted by the visit and the partnership with the Pardee institute.
The partnership entails Parliament’s access to and customisation of the Pardee Centre long range planning model, training of researchers and analysts Parliament and Statistics South Africa. Other elements include an exchange programme, strengthening of capacity for scenario planning and forecasting, as well as building of an effective monitoring and evaluation system.
The fifth Parliament of South Africa, had adopted an outcomes based planning model that sought to place the second generation of the democratic Parliament on a new path of long range planning.
Anchoring the new trajectory of the South African Parliament are five strategic objectives, that are: strengthening oversight and holding of executive accountable, enhanced public involvement and participation, deepening of engagements in international fora, strengthening of co-operative governance and strengthening of legislative capacity.
The US visit included a study tour to the United Nations Headquarters regarding collaborative efforts pertaining to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and partnerships with appropriate UN agencies, particularly the UNDP.
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