By Abdul Basir Azimi

Is Afghanistan a part of South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East or a part of all of them? The historical relationship between Herat, Balkh Samarkand, Bokhara and Merv (or Merw) and biographies of the figures like Amir Ali Sher-Nawaie, Nasir Khosrow, Avicenna can better illustrate the significance of what Afghanistan shares with Central Asia.

Indeed, Afghanistan and Central Asia have historically been closely tied to the Silk Route, but more recently, they are tied to common opportunities and threats in the region. If geopolitics separated the region in the 20th century, in the 21st century, it again brought them together. Consequently, the regional cooperation between all Central Asian countries and Afghanistan is getting promoted in a collaborative manner recently. Parliaments, as exclusive legislative bodies, play a significant role in institutional reforms in all states committed to the rule of law. Therefore, parliaments can have significant impacts on political stability, peace promotion, economic growth, and social inclusion, and even nation-building, especially in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Parliaments are not only important for each country, but they can have a great impact on regional cooperation and integration as well. Parliaments and parliamentarians can be brought together to collaboratively address existing and emerging concerns, threats, opportunities and issues in the region.

There are critical challenges to peace, security, and development in the region which can bring parliaments together to find effective and long-lasting solutions not only for each country but also for the region.

Peace, security, and development are regional challenges and are in need of regional responses. Certainly, there are interdependencies between peace, security, and development in all countries of the region.

Parliamentary diplomacy is a new aspect of international relations which has been paid less attention, especially in central Asia. It is completely acceptable that the parliamentarians tend towards their national interests. However, there are lots of multilateral opportunities and threats to bring the parliaments and parliamentarians in the region together to act as a cohesive and integrated body. So, the question is how to foster common understandings of these common interest.

The main question is how parliamentarians can represent themselves on international and regional stages as they are loyal to their national interests and accountable to their people desires and expectations.

Parliamentary diplomacy is a process whereby national parliaments contribute to foreign affairs including regional cooperation and integration. Parliamentary diplomacy could be approached in two levels: The first level is the legislative nature of parliaments and the second one is the political nature of parliaments.

Some examples of multilateral opportunities and threats in the region which all may agree with them:

First, security and peace: It is so clear that terrorist organizations like Daesh, drug trafficking, and radioactive wastes are serious threats for all in the region. While terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda moved to the countries of the North Africa and the Middle East in last couple of years, they will return to Pakistan and Afghanistan if they can, and their next target will be Central Asia. Drug traffickers are actively networking in the region. Obviously, having a secure region needs regional cooperation and integration.

States can cooperate in implementing regional trade systems, regional defense systems, and try to make win-win situations. This is a unique opportunity for parliaments in the region to take an initiative in this regard: come together; talk together and work together.

Second, development: There are also lots of regional opportunities for development. Most countries in Central Asia have lots of natural sources to generate electricity and transit to South Asia. For instance, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan have surplus electricity during summers, while Afghanistan and Pakistan suffer from electricity shortages especially during the hot summer months leading to frequent power cuts which have negative impacts on social welfare and economic growth. It has made a great opportunity for the Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to cooperate on cross-border power projects like CASA 1000 initiative. Others can be listed as TAPI pipeline and Lapis Lazuli transit road.

Parliaments' cooperation can catalyze the progress of the regional development projects and programs. Accordingly, they can ratify annual budgets of all development projects. The other area for regional development cooperation is dispute resolution in trans-boundary waters. The importance of water is increasing day by day because of the negative impacts of climate change like decreasing rainfall and precipitation, long-lasting droughts, and global warming. Rivers don’t recognize the territorial boundaries and flow between countries naturally. But reversely, states are competing with each other on how to get more and more from trans-boundary waters instead of working on comprehensive and inclusive agendas to use waters in most effective and efficient ways.

All water-sharing agreements between countries need to be ratified by parliaments. Supposedly, if the governments of Central Asia and Afghanistan come to a water-sharing agreement after long and difficult negotiations at a regional conference, what happens if one of the parliaments refuses the agreement?

The following sets are necessary for regional parliamentary cooperation:

1. Knowledge Management between Parliaments
Parliaments face similar challenges and issues in the region. Each parliament has got experiences in legislation, internal processes, procedures, and best practices. Sharing these tacit and explicit knowledge would be beneficial to all.
If parliaments could be linked by information and communication technologies (ICT) and if parliaments could share their lessons learned repositories with each other, they can be more transparent, more responsive and more efficient in the regional cooperation and integration.

2. Educational Programs
Parliamentary cooperation could be strengthened by regional scholarships, internships and exchange programs for students, young professionals and graduates from Central Asia and Afghanistan.

3. Exchange of Parliamentary Administrative Staff
Parliaments can exchange their administrative staff. These staff can learn about the processes and procedures of the other parliaments, and it may result in reforming and integrating administrative rules and principles of parliaments.

4. Research Center
There is often limited time to have enough debates on complex issues in parliamentary chambers, while members of parliament (MPs) can appoint committees to research various aspects of parliamentary agendas in more detail.
Parliamentary committees could be significant part of works done in each parliament. Parliaments should investigate issues and proposed laws in detail to enable MPs to make decisions effectively. To do the work effectively, parliamentary committees need data and technical knowledge as well. If a research center is established, it will facilitate the decision making processes in parliaments. The research center may focus more on regional cooperation and provide comparative analyses and information for parliamentary committees.

5. Parliamentary Professional Development
Parliamentary professional development programs initiative can enhance the capacity of MPs to effectively perform their functions of oversight, representation, and lawmaking leading to better contributions in national and regional contexts.
The complexity of works and high-qualifications required for legislation in parliaments may result in initiating some parliamentary capacity development programs in sophisticated technical issues like open budgeting, extractive industries, and climate change.

6. Regional Parliamentary Organizations and Mediators
Regional parliamentary organizations can act as a bridge to facilitate cooperation between the parliaments same as the other successful examples around the world namely, Inter-parliamentary Union, Council of Europe and Parliamentary Assembly of NATO.

7. Regional Parliamentary Meetings:
Regular meetings could be arranged between parliamentary committees of the region focusing on security, peace, and development. It could lead to a better regional understanding, cross-border solidarity and more effective parliamentary cooperation.
In conclusion, regional understanding and the cross-border solidarity are crucial for engagement, cooperation and integration of the region and parliaments can play active roles in promoting security, peace, and development in the region. Parliaments’ cooperation can be catalyzed by knowledge management, educational and exchange programs, regional parliamentary organizations and mediators and meetings.

Abdul Basir Azimi is a Research Fellow at the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS)

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The article does not reflect the official opinion of the AISS.