Democracy Connect - What We Do

Parliament Connect Constituency Connect Leadership Connect

Parliament Connect

This service identifies the development issues public leaders care about individually provides policy and information services through a step-by-step process of education, exposure and peer mentorship, it assists these leaders to form their opinions on what the right development goals are and the most effective ways of achieving them. These are typically delivered through:

Issue briefs
Concise analysis on current development issues of importance. These are short summaries that outline the history, identify the key aspects and provide analysis of the major arguments. These are often created at the request of a leader when the Parliament is in session. The emphasis is on clarity, brevity, comprehensiveness and most importantly, lack of bias. In the past, we’ve created briefs on biofuels, global warming and SEZs, among others. Urgent information requests are delivered through the Virtual Policy Cell (VPC) which uses emerging communication technology to leverage the services of a globally distributed pool of experts for preparing responses to requests of parliamentarians.

Analysis of Parliamentary Proceedings/discussions
This is an objective analysis Parliament questions and discussion under other rules and is typically done issue wise/MP wise. Derived as they are from the discussions in the Parliament, they mirror the issues both at the constituency level as well as the policy level that the elected representatives raise in the Parliament. Such analysis helps us and other civil society organizations to plug in the ongoing policy dialogue, identify trends, gaps and opportunities for education and advocacy efforts.

Small Group sessions with experts
Feedback from MPs has been that these are DemocracyConnect’s most effective learning tool. Unlike large workshop formats, off media- one to one or small group interaction with experts allows the MPs to listen, seek answers and learn. In the past, we’ve conducted these for issues like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Right to information Act and Tribal Act for MPs from BJP, Congress, CPI (M) and various regional parties. DemocracyConnect is a technical resource for the Sub Forum on Employment (Parliamentarians’ forum on Youth) set up by the Speaker, Lok Sabha in 2005. Experts drawn from a variety of backgrounds have helped us in this endeavour. Prominent amongst these are N. C. Saxena, Jean Dreze, Nikhil Dey, Arvind Kejariwal, Madhu Kishwar, Vinod Vyasulu, UN officials, economists from India Development Foundation, industry associations, and professionals from the field of law as well as representatives from bureaucracy.

Orientation, Foundation and Advanced courses on Governance, Economics and Leadership
Designed as classroom sessions these are modules spread over 8-12 sessions, have some pre-reading materials, a well designed multimedia content delivered by a specialist instructor. This is still in the development phase and over 12 sessions have been taken with two MPs. We should be ready to launch it in the next Lok Sabha (2009).

Constituency Connect

This is distinct from learning about governance and development from “experts”. To elaborate, one of the key functions of a political leader is to “set the agenda- essentially choose issues/causes to focus on”. These issues are increasingly being determined by agencies/groups (e.g. media) other than the MP’s constituents. Peoples’ groups and NGOs often champion certain issues and take them to elected representatives, however broad based institutions like PRIs are generally left out. This is envisaged as a platform which the MPs actively reach out to. Informal, unstructured and party platforms where MPs meet the Gram Panchayat/ULBs elected members already exist, but have not been very functional till now. Constituency Connect envisages a platform which is qualitatively very different. DemocracyConnect plans a hands-on methodology of helping the MP manage this learning process. Each MP will have a personal style of learning and action. Ultimately the objective is for the MP to be able to abstract issues that are region specific or subject specific and be able to figure out a role for himself/herself in dealing with them.

Constituency Development Services
A structured approach to identify top development priorities in a constituency and create a plan to address them. The nature of the project varies from one region to another and Democracy Connect’s role changes accordingly from data collection and analysis to project management and oversight.

• Identifying key development issues in the constituency – Primary data collection and analysis
• Prioritization of issues and a resolution strategy – Bringing together local stakeholders, development experts and the executive apparatus
• Implementation support – Setting up a project management office and bringing in targeted expertise for aspects of execution

Leadership Connect

This provides for continuous engagement with MPs who have shown serious interest (over a period of time in our interaction with him/her) in pursuing and championing a developmental issue. This envisages regular updates, briefings, study tours as well as structured interactions on the issue on question with PRIs/ULBs across the country or specific regions with in the country.