The local office of the National Democratic Insti-tute for International Affairs (NDI) closes its doors at the end of next month. It is the second US-based non-governmental organisation which has been helping to increase the country's governance capacity to fold up its tent here. The Carter Center closes at the end of this month.
NDI Director Michael Murphy told Current Affairs that the decision to close the office has been prompted by the change by the USAID of its funding process for projects. USAID now proposes contracts for the conduct of projects it is carrying out in Guyana. Before now it provided grants to conduct them and Murphy says that NDI only accepts grants.
Murphy who has been here since 2001 says that when it closes NDI would have exhausted the grants USAID had provided for the three projects it is presently working on.
One of the projects on which the Institute is engaged in is digitizing the Laws of Guyana. Murphy explained that it had done so before but the finished project contained a number of errors. He said that in addition to correcting those errors with the assistance of the Guyana Bar Association it was bringing the laws up to date as at December 31, 2002.
He said too that the digitized laws would contain the Guyana Constitution including the amendments that have been made to date. The Constitution was omitted from the project it completed last year. He said that the project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Attorney General's Chambers.
Another project is the production of a training manual for facilitating the involvement of women in local government elections. He said that the Canadian International Development Agency has since picked it up for training Amerindian women.
Murphy explained that the issues at the local government level - conditions of the roads, schools, garbage collection, drains - are the ones that women are concerned with based on surveys it has conducted in New Amsterdam and Anna Regina.
Murphy said too that the survey in New Amsterdam showed that some 87 per cent of those surveyed did not know or had not spoken to their councillors in the past eighteen months or so. This, he explained, is an indication that there seems to be a lack of accountability on the part of the councillors as there appears to be no relationship between the councillors and the residents of the town.
The NDI Head said too that his organisation has also been assisting the joint task force on local government reform by providing experts in the field of electoral systems and fiscal transfers.
It has also provided assistance in the drafting of the various legislation that is required as a result of the proposed reforms.
As part of that project Murphy said that NDI had organised groups in New Amsterdam and Anna Regina to improve the communication between the municipality and the citizens and to help deal with the solid waste management.
The group in New Amsterdam is the New Amsterdam Action Group, and the one in Anna Region is the Anna Regina Support Group.
About the New Amsterdam group Murphy, says that it has been engaged in helping to keep New Amsterdam clean and as a result of its work has obtained a contract from the Urban Management Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean to undertake a solid waste management audit aimed at increasing the efficiency of solid waste management in the town.
Another project for the NDI, according to Murphy, is parliamentary strengthening under which the staff of the Parliament Office has participated in workshops on legislative drafting and parliamentary management administration.
He said too that the Parliament Office has been provided with assistance in setting up a website on which it is planned to put on line bills that have been tabled, the Order Paper for the various sittings and the bills that have been passed, and notices of motions with links to other websites on Guyana.
Murphy says that it is also planned to put the Hansard on line together with information on the various members of parliament.
Another project on which NDI is engaged is a proposal for an internship programme under which qualified intern support would be provided to parliamentary sector committees. He explained that a working group including representatives from the United Nations Development Programme, Parliament Office, NDI and the University of Guyana will recruit students at UG who would be given credit based on the programme.
He said too that NDI is also engaged on drafting a manual for use by parliamentarians in which information will be provided on issues such as how to read a Bill and to deconstruct its meaning to see if it is relevant to the problem it is attempting to address.