Foundation trains newly elected members of the Puntland House of Representatives.
The Max Planck Foundation continued its legal capacity building programme for members of Parliament under the German Federal Foreign Office funded project ‘Capacity Building and Legal Advice for the Federal Member State Legislative Assemblies in Somalia‘ by facilitating a two-day induction workshop for newly elected members of the Puntland House of Representatives. The workshop was held by the Foundation’s local Legal Advisors in Garowe supported by the Project Coordinator and Senior Legal Advisor of the project on 31st January and 1st February 2024.
The workshop was organised following a request by the Speaker of the Puntland House of Representatives. The training was deemed necessary given that after an indirect election in early January 2024, the House of Representatives now consists mainly of newly elected members, with only eight members of 66 having been re-elected. Evidently, the result of the election marked a new beginning in Puntland’s political history and a critical step towards strengthening democracy and ensuring effective representation for all regions within Puntland. To optimise the members’ ability to deliver on their mandates, the induction training aimed at familiarising them with their new role and mandates.
After a general introduction to the role and functions of a legislature and especially those of a sub-national legislature in a federal set-up, the training aimed at introducing the members of the House of Representatives to various topics of law and law-making processes with a focus on the role and functions of the members of the Puntland House of Representatives, parliamentary rules and procedures, and the law-making process in Puntland as such.
The workshop was successfully concluded with participants appreciating the knowledge and skills they acquired in the training process. The participants showed enthusiasm for utilising the information gained in various legislative processes in the House of Representatives.