Commonwealth Parliamentary Association partners with Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services to promote parliamentary strengthening

A new partnership agreement between the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), with its network of almost 180 Parliaments and Legislatures across the Commonwealth, and the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) will benefit legislators across the Commonwealth.

The partnership will provide Parliamentarians across the CPA Asia Region – which includes Pakistan (national and provincial Legislatures), Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and The Maldives - with greater training and development opportunities, including programmes on parliamentary strengthening.

The joint Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by the CPA Secretary-General, Stephen Twigg, and Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) Executive Director, Muhammad Anwar. The partnership will help to further both organisation’s key objectives in areas of parliamentary strengthening, particularly towards achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 on building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

The CPA Secretary-General, Stephen Twigg said:

“The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding is a vital step towards strengthening the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in the CPA Asia Region. Our partnership work with the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) dates back several years on a number of different programmes and thematic workshops and this new MoU will further promote our ability to work together to provide professional development and training for our membership.”

Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) Executive Director, Muhammad Anwar said:

“This new partnership with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association will allow us to strengthen the tradition of parliamentary democratic values in general and learning best practices and parliamentary processes through capacity building in particular. This will provide an opportunity to cooperate towards achieving our mutual goal of serving key decision and policy makers through knowledge-sharing activities.”

The Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) was established in 2008 and since then, has hosted more than 400 capacity-building programmes and thematic roundtables for Members of Parliament and more than 150 programmes for parliamentary staff. PIPS is the only institution of Pakistan that has collected the entire repository of over 700 federal and more than 2,700 provincial laws currently on the statute from 1812 until today, following two years of data collection, testing and publication.

The institute has also published over 1,500 research-based articles, technical and thematic papers to individual Members of Parliament, Parliamentary Committees and cross-party caucuses as well as 67 books that are utilised as part of the core curriculum for the various capacity building programmes held for legislators and parliamentary staff working at the National Parliament of Pakistan as well as four Provincial Assemblies.

As a result of the MoU signing, the two organisations have agreed to:

• hold dialogues and capacity building initiatives for parliamentary delegations across the globe including bilateral ties to develop the insights of Members of Parliaments on best parliamentary practices.
• assist in the development and knowledge of Members of Parliament on contemporary parliamentary processes to perform their key tasks of representation, legislation and executive oversight.
• work together through research initiatives to find solutions to the common challenges being faced by the world at large.
• collaborate in the delivery of training activities for Members and parliamentary staff on key areas including parliamentary and legislative processes, the development of Committees, oversight methodologies, understanding budgets and public finances, parliamentary ethics and values, legislative assessment through research and Post-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS).

For further information about the partnership work between the CPA and PIPS please email hq.sec@cpahq.org.

Recent articles in The Parliamentarian by PIPS contributors:

• The Parliamentarian 2023 Issue Two: 'Developing a parliamentary agenda for the Global Climate Change Conference 2023 (COP28)' by Ms Fakiha Mahmood, Deputy Director (Research), Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS)
  
• The Parliamentarian 2023 Issue One: 'Parliaments free from sexism, harassment and violence against women: A case study of Pakistan's gender-sensitive Legislature' by Ms Tehseen Khalid, Director of Research, Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS)
• The Parliamentarian 2022 Issue Four: 'Professional Parliamentary Development by Independent Research and Training Institute – Opportunities and Challenges' by Muhammad Rashid Mafzool Zaka, Founder Team Member & the Director General of Research at the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS)

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The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association connects, develops, promotes and supports Parliamentarians and their staff to identify benchmarks of good governance and the implementation of the enduring values of the Commonwealth. The CPA is an international community of around 180 Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures working together to deepen the Commonwealth’s commitment to the highest standards of democratic governance.

For media enquiries, please contact communications@cpahq.org.