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UNDP`s intervention is a laudable gesture
2009-05-07 19:18:12
By Editor
Our attention is drawn to a recent notice by the United Nations Development Programme calling for applications from people interested in being engaged as political party experts to serve on something known as Deepening Democracy in Tanzania Programme (DDTP).
We are told that DDTP is designed to support the government`s efforts to consolidate and deepen democratic practice and has been developed as a follow-up to the country`s ``third successful multiparty Presidential and Parliamentary elections” held in December 2005.
The notice says the DDTP support would be extended to political parties through the Tanzania Centre for Democracy, an umbrella NGO founded in July 2005 by the five political parties with representation in the Union National Assembly.
Now, records show that the centre was set up primarily to provide ``a forum for a sustained multiparty dialogue on national matters that transcend narrow partisan political interests as well as enhance internal party democracy``.
We are further told that the centre`s mandate includes helping to promote the development of a strong multiparty democracy through the strengthening of the capacities of political parties.
It is also expected that the centre will provide training in support of the capacities of all political parties in the country as well as serve as a joint political institution out to promote unity, peace, stability, democracy and sustainable development.
It is UNDP`s hope that the initiative will help the democracy centre broaden its role accordingly so as to serve all registered political parties, even non-parliamentary ones.
Candidates UNDP will find most suitable are political party consultants with expertise and core competencies in democracy and governance, electoral and political processes as well as expertise in capacity building with political parties.
It is stressed that the candidates most likely to muster will be those able to design and develop a comprehensive and robust political party capacity building/strengthening programme addressing the capacity needs of the parties.
The programme should also be so designed as to strengthen the parties` organisational structures and viability alongside preparing the parties for the Presidential and Parliamentary elections due late next year in as many ways as possible.
Those who have been watching political developments in the country in recent years with a keen enough eye will readily agree that the playing field is too uneven for comfort.
In truth, it is simply impossible for all the dozen-plus political parties with permanent registration to compete fairly in the hustle and bustle attendant to the country`s political life generally and during elections in particular.
However well-intentioned the government or the ruling party may be, it will take a series of miracles for the small, weak and fragmented opposition parties to make a really meaningful and lasting mark on the country’s political map.
And, unfortunately, we are not seeing too many scenarios able to produce such miracles!
However, with the kind of intervention promised under the UNDP venture, it is possible for the political landscape to improve appreciably.
Sometimes sensitisation can work as many wonders as can injections of financial or other material support.
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