INTER PARES Partnership with the Parliament of Sierra Leone

Programme Timeline: July 2025 - August 31, 2026

PRIORITY 1

Legislative Drafting and Scrutiny

• Peer Exchange on Policy Motions (February 12). This session with the Danish Parliament explored the mechanism by which MPs can bring issues to the floor for debate and government accountability without drafting a full Private Member's Bill. 
• Peer Exchange on Pre-Legislative Consultation and Private Member's Bills (February 23). This exchange with the Irish Houses of the Oireachtas examined the role of pre-legislative scrutiny (PLS) in improving the quality of legislation, including how parliamentary committees examine draft legislation before its formal introduction and how the resulting PLS reports have a strong record of influencing final legislative content. 
• Financial Analysis of Private Member's Bills (February 25). A further exchange with Ireland explored the constitutional and procedural framework for Private Member's Bills, with a focus on how the Oireachtas Bills Office supports the process from initiation through to the preparation and review of financial impact analyses. 
• Citizen Engagement in the Legislative Process Using ICT and AI (March 6). This four-parliament session examined mechanisms for tracking legislation and making it publicly accessible (Ireland), the use of IT communications and CSO networks (Sierra Leone), online petitions (Belgium), and Citizens' Initiatives (Denmark) as tools for direct citizen engagement in parliamentary work. 

PRIORITY 2: 

Financial Scrutiny and Oversight 

• Enhanced Committee oversight capacity.
• Revised and user-friendly parliamentary oversight guide that integrates lessons learned from past oversight practices.

PRIORITY 3

Evidence Based Research and Analysis 

• Enhanced capacity for parliamentary staff- in multiple departments - to conduct research and prepare inputs for Committee deliberations

PRIORITY 4

Strategic Planning and AI

• POSL Participation in the Parliamentary Strategic Planning High-Level Workshop, Zambia (September 17–18, 2025): Two senior staff from the Parliament of Sierra Leone participated in a regional workshop on parliamentary strategic planning, drawing on peer experiences from eleven parliaments to refine the development and implementation of their own strategic plan.
• Technical Support to the POSL strategic planning (December 2025):  Inter Pares availed the technical expert who facilitated the Zambia Workshop, a former official of the Irish Houses of the Oireachtas, to review the draft POSL Strategic Plan and provide comments.