NSW Interactions with the Myanmar Delegates

Facilitated by ANFRIL, Bangkok6th December 2012

Bhaskara Rao GorantlaNational Social Watch (NSW)

Email: bhaskara.rao@nationalsocialwatch.net

Agenda• Introduction of participants• Evolution of National Social Watch• Functions of NSW• Methodologies for the Parliament Watch• Impact• Open discussion• Learning for Myanmar• Open discussion

Evolution of NSWC• National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC) is a

result of the felt need of the civil society to monitor the promises and performance of national Governments and International organizations at the Copenhagen Social Summit

• India social watch is a collaborative initiative of CYSD, Bhubneswar; NCAS, Pune; Samarthan, Bhoopal and several other organizations and individuals across the country

Evolution of NSWC

• Today the NSWC has 8 national coalition partners and state partner coalitions in 15 states.

• CYSD hosted the program for more than five years

• National Social Watch (NSW) is the national secretariat of the NSWC

National Social Watch

• The major objectives of NSW are:– To become a key agenda setter for the government– Redefine the politics of knowledge and usher in a

new dynamics in the process and quality of governance

– Ensure the centrality of the people at various levels in process of governance.

National Social Watch

• The major functions of NSW are: –Research; –Advocacy and –Networking

• Major focus areas are - ‘institutions of governance’

Research

• Annual Citizen’s Reports covering the Working of:– Parliament, – Executive, – Local Governance and – Judiciary

• Perspective and Focus Research Series• NSW bulletin

Networking• Advisory group – 13 eminent people• State Coalitions – no financial relations• Support to preparation of state social watch reports• Release the National Citizens’ Reports in the states• Collaboration with international social watch –

www.socialwatch.org . No financial relations• Contribute Indian section/ report in the annual

international social watch report. This year theme is MDGs 2015

• Association with campaigns and CSO networks in Delhi

Advocacy• Upload all research output to our website

www.socialwatchindia.net • Publish and release all major research outputs• Organize workshop to learn and share• Participate in various kinds of workshops by

other organizations for sharing and learning• Publish in journals small pieces of research

outputs• NSW Bulletin – circulate monthly• Reach out the critical leaders and administrators

Methodology• NSW Bulleting – compiling and circulating• Objectives–Communication to the people the monthly

developments in the focused areas – Parliament, Executive, Judiciary and Local Governance, in NSW, state partners and international social watch–Build capability of the team–Get the inventory of the topics to be covered

in the citizen’s report and in other research

Methodology• Apart from direct scanning of news papers, magazines,

use the Google news alerts extensively for the Bulletin• Press releases of Government are scanned from

www.pib.nic.in • The inventory of topics would be discussed in

brainstorming workshop to finalize the coverage in the citizen’s reports

• Subject experts are requested to prepare sections/ chapters for the citizen’s report

• Experts are invited to prepare perspective papers • Internal team fill the gaps and also take up

independent works

Google New Alerts

Google New Alerts

Google New Alerts

Google New Alerts

Parliament Watch

• Started preparing Parliament session wise reports

• Access extensively the resources available on the Parliament website.

• Upload to our website the critical material available from the Parliament and official websites and use the links in our bulletin

MPs Performance Index

• Weighted index of performance of four indicators in the Parliament –– Attendance – Questions asked– Private member bills introduced– Participation in the debatesExploring the possibility of preparing index about

outside House performance

Impact

• Bringing out good quality research output – Top Publishing houses are ready to publish

• Able to reach out top leaders and administrators – in our website you can see the pictures of our board members with the President, Vice-president, Prime Minister and others

• Good outreach - this event is an examle

Let us discuss

• Association with international social watch• Funding• Farha - Media as partner; conflict of interest• In Myanmar also the business are also

becoming MPs

Started watching

• what were the promises and what were delivers - Government outlays are reasonable, but outcomes are poor due to poor governance

• Who is speaking what – several constraints on the functioning of Members of Parliament

• Institutional accountability – Governance deficit due to centralization and Party politics. None of the political parties have real internal democracy

Conflict of interest

• Politicians turning into capitalist and capitalists turning into politicians – Vested interest for capitalism

• Conflict of interest between the legislative and the executive – Same set of people are involved in preparation of legislation, its implementation and monitoring of the implementation

Uneven performance of MPs

• Only nine out of 493 Lok Sabha members scored more than 50% index points

• Constraints– Education– Lack of appropriate experience– Various constraints – whips, anti-depiction law,

obligation to depend the party stand– No monitoring in the House about their presence

and performance

Suggestions

• Suggestions depends on our values/ assumptions. Our assumptions are:

• Decentralization – Democracy get strengthened at all levels through decentralization. Encourages wider participation in discourses and decision making

• Responsible behaviour could be obtained through appropriate systems

Suggestions

• Put two term restrictions on political positions and also within the political parties

• Minimum education qualification for elected representatives (60% of 1st Lok Sabha were Graduates. It is now 80%)

• Minimum five years experience in the immediate lower political representation position for all political representations

Suggestions

• Decentralization – Principle of subsidiarity: Higher layer of the governance performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at the more immediate or local level

• Break the nexus between the legislative and the executive

• Make voting mandatory on every bill/ motion in the legislative