Project Name:

FEMM – Eight Principles of "Best Practice" For Public Accountability : Stock-Take Questionnaire For Samoa

Country:

Samoa

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

No. of Man-months: 2 weeks

November 1999

November 1999

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 Investment Analyst

An Action Plan which included a section on eight principles of public accountability was endorsed at the 1997 Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM). From this, a stocktake questionnaire was developed to assist Forum member countries in assessing their national capacities and institutional strengths of their respective institutions, rules and regulations, procedures and processes to implement the Action Plan adopted by the Forum Leaders to strengthen the good governance and accountability framework in the Forum member countries. The stocktakes aimed at assisting member countries prioritise areas of technical assistance which they may need to implement the eight principles across the whole governance body.

The objective of this project was to complete the stocktake questionnaire for the Samoan Government and to present the main findings to a National Workshop on 24 – 25 November 1999 and at a Parliamentary Consultative Forum on 26 November 1999.

The consultant performed the following tasks to achieve the objective of the study:

• Completed the stock take questionnaire in as much detailed as required
• Obtained necessary information through consultations with senior government officials to complete the questionnaire and to identify possible areas in need of further assistance
• Identified areas in which the donor community already provided technical assistance
• Presented results of the questionnaire to a forum representative of the private sector, legislature and government
• Assisted working group sessions to prioritise the most pressing areas of public accountability within Government for implementation

The last two tasks were carried out at two consultative forums held in November 1999. The first forum was the ‘National Consultative Meeting On Accountability Principles And The Corporate Regulatory Framework’ which involved the private sector representatives and senior government officials. The second forum was the ‘Parliamentary Forum On FEMM Accountability Principles’ which was held for members of the Legislative Assembly. All documentation required for these forums were prepared by our firm.

A draft report of the stock take was submitted prior to the two forums with the final report presented following discussions at the two meetings.