October 6 – The Steering Committee on Capacity Development Facility (CDF) project was held to coordinate the activities implemented under the project. Key partners of the project: senior officials of the President’s Office, Prime Minister’s Office, representatives of Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan as well as DGP discussed completed and planned activities of the project. Learn more from Ainura Kaparova, Capacity Development Facility Project Coordinator (ak@dgov.undp.kg).
October 17 – Opening ceremony of Public Service Centers (PSC) of the State Registration Services (SRS) took place in Osh and Jalal-Abad. This unique project allow citizen of the southern region of Kyrgyzstan to access registration services on the basis of a “single window” facilitating and accelerating issuance of necessary documents. The project was implemented by UNDP DGP in collaboration with the State Directorate and the SRS under the Kyrgyz Republic Government with financial support of the Russian Government. Learn more from Chinara Suyunbaeva, ICT Components Coordinator (chs@dgov.undp.kg)
October 5 - Parliamentary hearings took place on the draft law on republican budget for 2012. In the draft 2012 budget: revenues – 68 billion soms, reduced by 1.2 per cent compared to 2011. The tax revenues contribute to 72 per cent of total revenues and not tax revenues are 28 per cent. There is a trend towards increasing tax revenues compared to non-tax revenues. Expenditures for 2012 will be at 80.8 billion soms which is 0.87 per cent greater than in 2011. The largest item of expenditures is “Other expenditures” which accounts for 28.2 billion soms or 35 per cent of total budget. More than 100 representatives of civil society, experts, budget beneficiaries etc. participated at the hearings who expressed comments and recommendations. Leaders of civil society noted the necessity for greater financial decentralization without which reforms of the local governments are not feasible. They also noted that some articles of the budget are not transparent and the budget is hard for understanding by public at large. Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance Mr. Akylbek Japarov pointed out that for the first time in Kyrgyzstan representatives of the civil society had the opportunity to comment on the national budget before it is submitted to the Parliamentary debates. The hearings were organized with assistance of the EU-UNDP New Legal Reform Project. Learn more from Gulmira Mamatkerimova, Project Manager ( gm@dgov.undp.kg).
October 18 – EU-UNDP New Legal Framework Project assisted a Parliamentary Working Group in conducting a round table on a draft law on political parties. This bill is being aligned with the new Constitution and will take into account new roles of political parties in governance and formation of policy directions. The law should resolve issues that have been overlooked for the past several years. Parties are an important element of democratic system and are active part of society which ensures development of society via competition, healthy criticism and push forward to self-improvements and development.
Discussions of the draft law highlighted new different issues: funding of parties, cooperation with parliamentary factions, party leadership etc. Representatives of political parties and their leaders, political science experts and NGO leaders exchanged their views on interaction of parties with the state, principles of creation and registration, issues of interparty relations etc. International expert Mr. David Usupashvili (Georgia), who was invited by the project, presented international experience on party systems in different countries, as well as results of legal examination of the bill and provided a number of specific proposals. Learn more from Gulmira Mamatkerimova, Project Manager ( gm@dgov.undp.kg).
October 19 –An international conference on “The Role of the Parliament in Establishment of Independent Kyrgyzstan” took place in Bishkek. President Roza Otunbaeva, national MPs and ex-speakers, MPs from Turkey, Georgia, Kazakstan, Tajikistan and Moldova, heads of foreign diplomatic missions and others participated at the conference. Participants gave an assessment of the roles of Jogorku Kenesh in development of independent Kyrgyzstan and perspectives of development of parliamentarianism in the country. Speakers pointed out that Kyrgyzstan has made significant step forward in development of parliamentarianism by introducing many procedures corresponding to the best international parliamentary practices: conducting expertise of draft laws, participation of civil society etc. At the same time participants noted downsides in the process of moving toward Parliamentary system. Foreign guests shared their experience of development of parliamentarianism in their home countries.
The conference initiated by the Parliamentary Committee on international affairs and interparliamentary cooperation and supported by the EU-UNDP New Legal Framework project. Learn more from Gulmira Mamatkerimova, Project Manager ( gm@dgov.undp.kg).
October 24 – Capacity Development Facility (CDF) Project held another media workshop in Osh for students of local universities. This intensive ten-day training, which was the next stage of CDF’s youth media initiative, engaged young people of various ethnic backgrounds into development and production of youth radio talk shows. As a result of the workshop, its participants created four radio programmes – on interethnic marriages, professional and personal development, finding balance between school and student activism, and volunteering. All four talk shows were hosted by training participants themselves in Kyrgyz, Russian and Uzbek languages, featured pre-recorded stories and a specially invited guest speaker, and are now being broadcast on Almaz-Yug radio station. Internews-Kyrgyzstan, El TR broadcasting company and Osh Media Resource Center provided technical support to this project. Learn more from Dinara Akmatbekova, Public Information Capacity Building Project Coordinator (da@dgov.undp.kg).
October 26 – EU-UNDP New Legal Framework Project assisted the Jogorku Kenesh in organizing a round table to discuss a draft law on the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, which was initiated by all leaders of parliamentary factions. International expert Mr. Vakhtang Khmaladze (Georgia), invited by the EU-UNDP Project, presented independent assessment of the bill. He highlighted the importance of specification of powers of different institutions in order to avoid their limitation and overuse of power. The round table helped to reveal bottlenecks of the bill and ways to overcome them. Initiators received valuable proposals from representatives of civil society, governmental institutions, political scientists and experts. Learn more from Gulmira Mamatkerimova, Project Manager ( gm@dgov.undp.kg).
October 27-29 - A workshop on development of the draft law on public and municipal services took place in Kashka-Suu. The event was initiated by the Prime-minister Office of the KR and supported by UNDP Democratic Governance Program CDF project. Prime-minister Office representatives, representatives of expert’s community and NGOs, members of working group on development of a draft law established by order of the Head of the Prime-minister Office participated. During the workshop the concept and structure of the draft law have been considered and discussed. Learn more from Ainura Kaparova, Capacity Development Facility Project Coordinator (ak@dgov.undp.kg).
November 3-4 – EU-UNDP New Legal Framework Project in partnership with OSCE/ODIHR, Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan, OHCHR, Venice Commission and GIZ assisted in organizing several meetings to help improve the work of the Council on Selection of Judges and work out solutions for overcoming problems faced the Council. Several international experts took part in the meetings. Part of these activities was an educational training on “Strengthening of independence of judicial system through procedure of selection of judges” for members of the Council and its Secretariat as well as national experts. Five international experts from Russia, Estonia, Denmark, Lithuania and two national specialists were invited for the training. Learn more from Gulmira Mamatkerimova, Project Manager ( gm@dgov.undp.kg).
