Conclusions

The research team examined seven national parliaments across three continents. The countries ranged from very small (Grenada) to very large (Nigeria), and from older democracies (Ghana and Trinidad & Tobago) to newer (Myanmar). Our country level research was preceded by a global statistical analysis and the development of a new index of parliamentary oversight and concluded with three cross cutting themes of our country level research, namely political will, knowledge asymmetry and the special case of oversight of extractive industries. Five principal conclusions were reached: (1) there is a need for a better articulation of the responsibilities of both the executive government and parliament, in the promotion of good governance and curbing corruption; (2) there is a need for a clearer clarification of the roles of various oversight institutions, such as Ombudsmen, Auditors General and Anti-Corruption Agencies and for parliament to ensure the independence of these institutions from political interference; (3) there is a need for parliaments themselves to strengthen their ties with other stakeholders interested in curbing corruption; and (4) in resource rich countries, parliaments need to strengthen their oversight role of extractive industries; and (5) the Westminster form of parliamentary governance is not suited to small states, and certain facets need to be relaxed to reflect contextual differences between the United Kingdom and larger Commonwealth states and smaller island economies.