As the current holder of the USAID International Legislative Strengthening Technical Assistance IQC, we implemented the Kyrgyzstan Legislative Strengthening Project. As prime contractor for USAID’s 11-year, 40-country Implementing Policy Change (IPC) program, MSI provided office-holders in numerous countries with technical assistance to formulate, legislate and implement reform agendas on a wide range of issues, including civil service reform, decentralization, NGO relations, press freedom, and private sector development.

For example, in Uganda, South Africa, and Bulgaria, MSI worked with parliamentarians, committee staff, and civil society to generate government consensus on policy issues while building public constituencies for political change. Subsequent projects in Albania, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Nigeria, Mexico and Ecuador have built on this experience. We have also trained legislators in democratic procedure and legislative operations. Following the historic return of electoral democracy in Nigeria in 1999, MSI designed and delivered training programs in 16 sites around the country to all 360 elected members of Congress and to more than 1000 newly elected state legislators. Other examples include training provided for women legislators in Uganda and legislative and procedural consultation in Zimbabwe.