Reflections on international political party assistance

Abstract

For the past two decades, the international community has been providing assistance to political parties as part of its efforts to promote multi-party democracy in developing and transition societies. Its assistance programmes are designed to help political parties improve their organizational capacities, promote internal democracy, recruit women and minorities, and effectively participate in legislative processes. The programmes also support legal and regulatory reforms for effective functioning of parties. This article examines the nature and form of political party assistance given by the international community. It also raises a number of questions and issues concerning party assistance programmes. These are a lack of local ownership of assistance programmes; the possible negative impacts of financial and commodity assistance; limited technical expertise of donor and intermediary organizations; limited time horizon of assistance projects; partisanship nature of assistance; balancing political party and civil society assistance; and finally the relevance of the assistance models.

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