With the entry into force of the constitutional amendments in 2018, which has completed Georgia’s evolution from a semi-presidential system to a parliamentary republic, the Parliament is now at the heart of the democratic governance in the country. In combination with the Parliament’s newly-reformed Rules of Procedure (RoP), the role of the legislature is substantially increased. New mechanisms introduced by the RoP grant the Parliament stronger powers to effectively exercise its law-making and oversight functions and increase citizen engagement in legislative processes.
With the enhanced mandate and reformed RoP in place, the Parliament of Georgia now requires strengthening its institutional capacities in order to ensure that the newly introduced principles and mechanisms of strong parliamentary system are set in motion.
Over the last three years the new instruments and provisions of the RoP have been applied in practice. However, some of the initiatives have been sporadic and often implemented through the external (donor) support. This is mostly due to a lack of institutional capacity of the parliament to effectively exercise the expanded functions, which requires more, effective, dynamic and high-quality parliamentary performance with enhanced analytical capabilities. Since the Parliament cannot rely permanently on donor support, the organization needs to reform its institutional set-up – translating it into a modern and strong institution capable of implementing its functions in a more effective and efficient manner. For doing that, the parliamentary leadership has committed to elaborate a medium-term Strategic Development Plan of the Parliament of Georgia.
This is not the first instance when the Parliament of Georgia is embarking on the path toward developing its institutional strategy. There have been previous efforts in the past years when through the support of the European Union and UNDP the Parliament elaborated its first ever Institutional Reform Plan (IRP) for 2016-2018. After a very positive mid-term review of the IRP, the new action plan for 2019-2020 has been also designed; however, failed to be officially adopted by the Parliament due to onset of political developments in the country at that time suspending the process. Hence, the reforms outlined in the document, had not been materialized in practice to full extent.
To support the Parliament of Georgia in resuming the process and realizing its commitment for setting up a new development strategic plan for the Parliament, the UNDP Project is seeking the services of a pool of international and national consultants to facilitate the strategic planning process in the Parliament. The present Terms of Reference (ToR) specifically relates to the services to be provided by the national Organizational Development Consultant (hereinafter referred as the ODC).