Forty-eight provincial MPs and sixteen political and administrative staff members from the North-Kivu Provincial Assembly are receiving 2-day training, from 20 to 21 November in Goma as part of retraining and induction seminar on parliamentary procedures and practices.

Of the 48 members of the North-Kivu Provincial Assembly, 83% of the elected representatives are on their first tenure. Two-thirds of the provincial MPs come are members of the civil society organizations and have no parliamentary experience at all.

Organized by the Political Affairs section of the Petit Nord office in Goma, the refresher session aims to build MPs capacity on parliamentary procedures and practices to help them become more familiar with the Provincial Assembly’s oversight mechanisms for the decentralized services.

The MPs will then be given the opportunity to better understand their role in the protection and promotion of human rights and to become familiar with notions of democratic space and public freedom.

At the opening of the meeting, the chief of MONUSCO North-Kivu office said the session was aimed to provide stability and coherence within the parliamentary institution, to some extent, with a view to averting obstacles that might hinder the smooth functioning of the parliament.

Julius Fondong further said "this session is an opportunity for the elected representatives to better understand the issue of overseeing the deconcentrated services by the Provincial Assembly and to understand the role of parliamentarians in the protection and promotion of human rights" .

MONUSCO Political Affairs Section is planning in the near future to assist the Provincial Assembly in printing and dissemination working documents such as the rules of procedure, parliamentary lexicons, legal texts (laws, decrees and executive orders) in the form of leaflets.