 Parliaments play a critical role in their nations' good governance by ensuring that state institutions are accountable, by representing the populace at the highest level of government, and by helping formulate and enact policies and legislation. More specifically, parliaments can be important players in helping curb corruption in their countries by exercising oversight (particularly financial) over the executive branch, building political will and enacting suitable legislation. Because of this, the World Bank has tried to increase its collaboration with MPs in many countries worldwide, including Portugal.  To increase even further parliamentary involvement and effectiveness in the field of international development , the World Bank has fostered the creation of a Parliamentary Network on the World Bank (PNoWB). Beginning in 1999 as a dialogue about development and information-sharing between the Bank's European Vice-Presidency (EUR), based in Paris, and a small group of European Parliamentarians, this initiative has met with great success. The Parliamentarians eventually created a network amongst themselves and broadened their group to include more than 140 MPs from 60 countries around the world.
 A example of initiative that was lanched through the PNoWB was the third Council Meeting of the Inter-European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (IEPFPD), which was was held on the 26th and 27th of  May 2003 (see picture above), in the Portuguese Senate by invitation of the President of the Portuguese Parliament Mr Joao Bosco da Mota Amaral, the Portuguese Parliamentary Group on Population and Development and the Portuguese Family Planning Association. Participants included MPs from over 20 parliaments in Europe as well as representatives from other regional parliamentary networks, the World Bank, and NGOs. Among several discussions, European parliamentarians declared the ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development) essential for future progress in sexual and reproductive health and rights and discussed resource mobilisation, creation and enabling environment and overcoming barriers and obstacles to implementation of ICPD.
The network's core mission involves accountability, advocacy, networking, partnerships, and progress review. Among PNoWB's activities are field visits to World Bank projects to check results on the ground, a Parliamentarians Implementation Watch to monitor and promote that things are actually being done to put countries on track to meet the MDGs, an online question & answer system enabling parliamentarians to ask any question about the Bank's projects and policies, and a global parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS. The PNoWB Annual Conferences, jointly organized with the World Bank, have brought parliamentarians together with the heads of the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and other leaders in development. For more information, click here. |
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