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The poor should be given a voice - Mwanamwambwa

The poor should be given a voice - Mwanamwambwa
By Mutuna Chanda
Wednesday April 16, 2008 [04:00]

SPEAKER of the National Assembly Amusaa Mwanamwambwa has said the poor should be given a voice to articulate issues that affect them. During the ongoing 118th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Cape Town, South Africa on Monday, Speaker Mwanamwambwa said the poor should be involved in the design and implementation of poverty reduction strategies.

"Efforts to reduce poverty should be broad-based and take into account important aspects of human development, empowerment and security," Speaker Mwanamwambwa said. "This should be followed by the provision of social protection or security to the poor."

He said parliaments had a significant role to play in reducing poverty by approving increased government spending on anti poverty initiatives and by monitoring and evaluating such programmes.

"The task of parliaments in the budgetary process is an enormous one and requires analytical skills to adequately scrutinise government expenditure," Speaker Mwanamwambwa said. "Parliaments should therefore be trained in budget analysis skills to enable them come up with meaningful interventions."
He said resulting from reforms that the Zambian Parliament had implemented, the poor now had a voice.

"In the budgetary process, broad public participation now helps to improve the management of public expenditure by giving a voice to the poor to articulate how they would want natural resources to be utilised," he said. "The Zambian parliament has also put in place measures to bring it closer to the people. These reforms have made it easier for stakeholders to interact.

It is now increasingly being seen as an institution capable of partnering with civil society, the media and other stakeholders in effectively holding the government accountable by ensuring that people's views and aspirations on such issues as poverty reduction concerns are reflected in government programmes and activities."

Speaker Mwanamwambwa's remarks were made under the theme "The general debate on the political, economic and social situation in the world: pushing back the frontiers of poverty," at the Assembly of the Inter Parliamentary Union.
The assembly started on April 13 and ends on April 18.

Labels: POVERTY

posted by MrK @ 3:53 AM