Gunilla Carlsson, Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation, and Vidar Helgesen, Secretary-General of International IDEA, at the workshop on international party assistance, 23 January 2007 in Stockholm.
Party assistance has been part of international cooperation for decades. During the years it has expanded steadily, both in terms of funding and the number of actors involved. Nonetheless, party assistance lacks coherent standards and principles for determining what projects should achieve, how appropriate activities can be identified, and how their impact can be measured.
Political party assistance is increasingly being viewed as a means to support more effective and inclusive political processes and settlements and a way to strengthen the role political parties play as a key institution of accountable representation.
The findings of recent seminars and research point to persisting challenges and the need to deepen debate and discussion on many aspects of party assistance. They also point to the need to develop more effective support programmes for political parties based on sound analysis of political context, including formal and informal institutions and dynamics.
Effective Party Assistance Activities:
- On 15-18 March 2010, International IDEA together with DFID and FCO will host the Wilton Park conference “Delivering Effective Political Party Assistance: Challenges for policy makers and practitioners”. The purpose of the conference is to bring together international actors, party foundations and implementing partners working in the field of political party assistance as a common ”community of practice”. The idea is to bring together political and developmental approaches and improve the effectiveness of our interventions and the impact upon our beneficiaries - political parties and party systems.
- On 15-16 September 2009, International IDEA and DFID hosted a seminar on “Quality Party Assistance”, which was attended by a broad range of party assistance providers, including donors and international organizations. The objective was to validate the findings of an external evaluation carried out in 2009 on International IDEA’s global Political Parties Programme. But more importantly, the seminar discussed the broader aspects of party assistance with the aim of developing a platform to discuss more coordinated, coherent and effective approaches.
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On 27 November 2007, International IDEA launched its policy paper on Effective Party Assistance at an international workshop in Ottawa. More then one hundred international experts attended, again representing donors, assistance providers and assistance partners. The event was supported by the Government of Canada.
- On 23 January 2007, International IDEA and the UN Development Programme brought together some seventy experts and practitioners at a workshop in Stockholm to assess the state of multiparty systems and the effectiveness of international party assistance. Participants came from donor agencies, assistance providers and assistance partners.
As a means to deepen the discussion on effective party assistance, IDEA, DFID and other key actors such as NDI, NIMD, UNDP, OECD-DAC, USAID and Global Partners thought it essential to extend the discussion to members of the broader democracy assistance community. In this regard, a virtual discussion on a specific party assistance topic is now launched on the ACE Practitioners' Network.
The outcome of virtual discussion will be consolidated and shared with participants at the Wilton Park conference on 15-18 March 2010. Following from Wilton Park, the consolidated conference report will be made available to the Practitioner’s Network, in addition to information on follow-up initiatives. If there is interest, a virtual working group can be established to continue discussing issues pertaining to party assistance.
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