The study discussed the potential for improving the performance of Arab parliaments in the light of the development of these institutions worldwide and in the light of the general world transformations that are bringing sweeping societal and cultural changes worldwide. The study also discussed the challenges these transformations impose in order to keep abreast of the age's developments and the trends they have generated toward the globalization of the activities of parliaments and local political experience in general.

The new develop of parliamentary work has come to occupy a more important position on the agenda of political discussions with public opinion and researchers. Moreover, this issue is being widely covered in the printed media and the television in particular.

The study deal with three levels: institutional, technical and political, and it concentrates on three sectors: research and information, committees and training. It concludes by surveying the most important challenges to and the prospects of institutional development of parliaments. Section One of the study surveys experiments of contemporary parliaments whether in institutional development, techniques, managements, rules of procedures or the development of committee work.

1. Concerning institutional development and techniques, the study surveys the most important developments in parliamentary work in a number of countries in the contemporary world. The study noted the following:
(A) there is a dominant trend to make parliament a stronger political institution. This tendency reinforced by the nature of election arrangements, the relation between the legislative power and the government, the impact of government alliances, political parties and interest groups, the nature of the systems of parliamentary committees and the level of information diffusion.
(B) There is no single and distinct model for organizing the technical division that assists MPs since the structure of the secretariat is linked to the parliamentary system that goes along with the nature of the existing political system. Moreover, there is not one model in the secretariat for organizing and dividing the technical divisions into a number of units. As a matter of fact, the number of parliamentary committees varies with the circumstances of each state.
(C) The common denominator for the staff working in various parliamentary units and divisions is the ability to use the computer well, to be knowledgeable in modern data systems and versed in the most important sources of quick and relevant information.
(D) Parliamentary research services are active through the studies prepared for the committees. These studies constitute the backbone of parliamentary work. Research units could also constitute an integral part of the structural organization of the parliamentary library, the national library and the party research centers. However, the common denominator among these research services should be the strict commitment to objectivity, and the provision of various facts, figures and documents to everyone.
(E) On the other hand, library services have witnessed a great development in indexing, communication between libraries and access to other sources of information, references and other libraries, locally and internationally.
(F) To diffuse information, parliament has to open its doors to the public to follow the deliberations of the parliamentary sessions. Some parliaments have radio and television stations to cover parliamentary deliberations and transmit them to the public.

2. Development of parliamentary by-laws. Formally speaking, they are a set of rules that pertain to the structure of parliament's work and its main units as well as to MPs rights and duties. In fact, they are conditions and procedural rules which regulate parliamentary work. Politically speaking, they are a set of ideas, customary practices and parliamentary principles which aim at facilitating parliamentary work in order to realize a greater degree of democracy within parliament and transparency in parliament's relation with society.

In this context, the study proposes a set of ideas for the development of Arab parliamentary by-laws.
(A) By-laws organization of discussion should not inhibit the freedom of expression for all MPs or the diversity of political tendencies within parliament.
(B) By-laws should be part of a more comprehensive legal order such that they legally rank third after the constitution and the laws of the land.
(C) By-laws should not be rigid, but flexible enough to permit their amendment in accordance with society's economic, political and cultural developments.
(D) By-laws, in organization and status, should not be complicated to the extent of creating difficulties fully comprehend them even by specialists and legal experts.
(E) By-laws should not tend to treat the speaker as the overseen of MP's performance and conduct. Such a tendency is contrary to the equality of all MPs.

3. Development of parliamentary committees. The study underlines the importance of these committees in parliamentary work since they perform a number of critical functions. They allow the MPs to examine the draft laws, supervise government programs, and participate in the legislative process. Some constitutions open the meetings of the parliamentary committees to the public while other countries keep these meetings closed.

The representation of the different political forces in the membership of the committees reflects the political balance of power within parliament. The major parties in parliament seize the majority of the seats of the committees while the smaller parties are deprived from representation all together or they are represented by a limited number of MPs. The distribution of the chairmanships of the committees among the political forces represented in parliament differs according to the countries. In Germany, committee charimanships are distributed among the parties represented in parliament in accordance with the size of each party and in the U.S.A. the majority party seizes the chairmanship of all committees.

However, to prevent overlap confusion in the work of the committees, especially when they constitute a large number within parliament, work is divided among sub-committees or ad hoc committees.

As for the special committees, they usually act like bearing committees and some of their features make of them almost a monitoring instrument of parliament. However, the interest of Arab parliament is focused more on direct monitoring tools, especially on interrogation, because it implies a direct accusation of the executive power. Furthermore, public opinion follows the interrogation events with greater interest. On the other hand, the bearing commission does not enjoy the same parliamentary and media interest despite the fact they could represent the most important mechanism open to parliamentary monitorship, especially that they call on specialists and citizens from different background.

Section two of the study deals with some of the practical problems of the performance of Arab parliaments. Among these problems are the difficulty of dealing with the sources of official information, especially the ministries and other official bodies, on the one hand, and the difficulty of operating as a team in order to obtain the necessary detailed information, on the other. The bearing tool requires the activation of the common skills and convictions of the participants in order to bear fruit. The study proposes several practical steps to develop parliamentary work:

1. Development of bearing committees
The study specifies that the real value of the activities of bearing committees is in the depth surveying of the various actual aspects of an issue under discussion, and not in the presentation of the largest number of issues to parliament. A bearing committee is commissioned to perform two things: First, to search for the diverse sources of official and non-official information which would enlighten parliament on the issue under discussion as well to attract experienced and specialized persons to participate in its work. Second, the control of the investigation work of the committee is accomplished by two mechanisms: holding of a coordination meeting for MPs who are members in order to agree on a work plan and dividing the committee work into sub-committees.

2. Development of parliamentary information and research units
Information and research are the most important tools for the development of parliamentary performance among and the increase of the institutional capacity of parliaments. Despite this fact, Arab parliaments, as a whole, are in need of an information revolution. This revolution would lead to the larger use of modern technology in parliament-related information, and the acquisition of technical capabilities to store and retrieve information as well as developing systems for the management of information and for making this information available to the MPs.

Furthermore, parliamentary research activities have become a central pollar of the development of parliamentary work. These research activities are required to meet the increasing demand for parliamentary services by MPs , specialized researchers and others.

The study considers that the development of parliamentary research units in the Arab world is passing through a transitional and critical phase. These units are required today to revise their activities in issues such as the research, study and legislative services strategy, the programs, the response policies and techniques, to better meet the needs of MP's and parliaments. In this framework, the study surveys aspects of development of parliamentary research as practiced by some contemporary parliaments:
(A) The development of the structural and administrative organization of research and information services. This development could be accomplished in three ways: Structural and organizational merger. In the Australian parliament, the library and the research units were merged in one structural organization and in Canada, the research unit was incorporated in the library structural organization. Division and diversification. Research and information tasks were redistributed among several independent units. Coordination of services. It is accomplished through the coordination between parliamentary research activities and information services. The goal of restructuring in most cases is to develop parliamentary research activities and information services in order to become more responsive to MP needs.
(B) The development of performance. This is accomplished by meeting the wishes of the client, by initiating a service and by accelerating service delivery. Contemporary parliaments tend to move away from the traditional method of research characterized by complexity and details to the modern method of producing research and information services that are simplified and diversified in form and depth according to the MP's needs and abilities and made available in advance of the parliament's agenda.
In addition to the written research services, MPs often need telephone consultation, oral responses and E-mail. Hence, modern parliamentary research services attempt to do two things to meet these needs. First, the development of modern databases by utilizing developed technologies that would help in speedily providing basic data on the issues requested. Second, the creation of new forms of research services and the training of workers to perform them. Moreover, parliamentary research services tend to concentrate on giving precise and brief answers. This quality of research and information services requires that researchers and MPs possess sophisticated skills.
(C) The development of parliamentary research and information scope of interest. Research and information services must be qualified humanly and informationally to deal with various new issues. However, it has been observed that these services focus on two main issues: The budget and the technical formulation of legislations.
(D) The development of new research techniques. With the spread of the scientific revolution and the generalized use of computers, new horizons opened up before the parliamentary research and information services which allow opportunities for innovation and for the improvement of performance. The most salient uses of the computer in this domain are: Economic and financial analysis, legislative databases and simulation models. In the Canadian parliament, for example, a small model was developed that simulates the tax system in order to support the work of the parliamentary economic analyst in studying the taxation systems and alternatives.
(E) The development of work techniques and tools. Modern techniques are a basic feature of different institutions. Consequently, they constitute a basic factor in the development of contemporary parliaments especially in the financial management sphere, the research and information services domain, and in the management of general parliament sessions and the implementation of the electronic voting systems.
Although the introduction of these modern techniques to parliamentary work costs much, let alone the need for continuous training for researchers and technicians, on the long term they would realize a saving, apart from multiplying the work benefits. The most prominent modern techniques, that are employed by the modernized parliaments, are the PCs, Internet, CD ROMs, LANs and E-mail.
(F) The development of international parliamentary cooperation. Modern techniques have helped to enhance international cooperation among legislative institutions, exchange legal expertise and reinforce research concerned with constitutional systems. In this context, the international legal information network was established to collect and document legal, constitutional, judiciary and jurisprudence documents and publish them on the Internet

(3) Development of the parliamentary library.
This action was prompted by the fact that the legislator is in constant need of an increased measure of good, documented and analyzed information and the main source of this information is the parliamentary library in most legislative assembles of the world. This library is considered part of any general communications and information system in the country. The MPs administer the legislative library which is supervised, in some parliaments, by a committee known as the "Library Committee".

The parliamentary library contains a variety of types of information. These include official publications, periodicals, reports, studies, thesis and academic works, as well as basic references.

In this context, the study presents two cases of parliamentary library: One in the Indian parliament and the other in the Egyptian parliament. The Indian parliamentary library contains nine principal units: library service, computer center, microfilm unit, audio-visual aids unit, photography and printing, documentation service, newspaper excerpts service, research service and the parliamentary press office.

The Egyptian parliamentary library activities include: borrowing for internal and external use, photocopying, current affairs, selective transmission of information, preparation of subject bibliography lists, microfiches, press archive, condensing periodical articles, Internet services, reference service and information files on local and international subjects. The Egyptian library is undergoing a technical modernization process which includes the development of administrative procedures, and the progressive automation of libraries, office work and information and research services.

(4) Development of parliamentary training
The importance of training for the parliamentary institutional development process lies in that, first, continuous and diverse training on all levels and in all domains keeps parliament better informed about recent development. Second, being a complex and multi-dimensional institution with many committees and roles to play vis-à-vis other powers and the citizens, parliament is in need of an organizational structure and a team of assistants who possess diverse abilities and skills. Third, since staff of parliament are obliged to coordinate the work of the various committees, units and sectors, they are in need continuous training. Fourth, MPs are a diverse and mobile group who do not resemble each other in abilities, interests, and intellectual and political affiliations. Hence, they need technical expertise that matches their diversity. Fifth, the new issues and subjects of interests to parliament which are in constant development and the related required skills in the technical division assisting MPs. What makes this training need especially important is the absence of the parliamentary resource centers in the Arab world.

The training programs in Arab parliaments are of two kinds: Programs carried out in coordination with parliament and programs carried out outside parliaments. The programs carried out in coordination with parliament are more successful, less complex and less prove to technical and organizational problems. Examples of training experience in the Arab world include Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine.

The basic features of successful training programs for staff of parliament are:
1) Training would take place according to a plan that is suitable for the requirements of parliamentary work.
2) Training is viewed as a continuous process to develop worker's skills in parliamentary work.
3) The training plan would create a group of trainers who subsequently would train others.
4) Training is an essential factor in maximizing benefits from the information technology and computers.
5) Choice of institutions carrying out the training programs must favor national institutions, and if international associations are necessary, the training should be done locally.
6) The training plan would be divided into function areas. The main training areas are: committees, sessions, research and information areas and administrative and technical affairs. And the main topics are: legal and parliamentary know-how, development of parliamentary work, legislation formulation skills, basic technical and language know-how, specialized research, technical and administrative skills, budget analysis and economic policies, and library development programs.

(5) Development of parliamentary media.
Communication systems and parliamentary media have become an important tool for developing the parliamentary institution and for reviving the democratic climate in society because of the populist nature of parliament, its representation roles and its legislative and oversight function. This state of affairs requires reserving a T.V. channel for Arab parliamentary media in order to contribute to the development of the society's democratic culture and institutions.

In conclusion, the study surveyed the lessons learned from the experiments of institutional development in contemporary parliaments. It pointed out to the most important domains for developing Arab parliamentary work:
1) Supporting MP activities: The development of an institutional system to support the relations of MP's with their constituencies and the citizens. The cooperation of the executive power with parliament in the dissemination of information. The necessity to organize MP visits to world parliaments and international organizations. Convening of regional and international conferences to discuss the technical and administrative issues in parliaments. The creation of a ministerial portfolio for parliamentary affairs.
2) Institutional development through the reform of the parliamentary by-laws to establish a balance between political and party tendencies in parliament, the development of the committee system, modernizing its technical performance, and activating its role in legislative initiatives and thorough analysis of legislations, establishing and developing a specialized unit for training the technical division of parliament, and taking special interest in computers, technical support and the automation of parliamentary work.
3) Developing research, information and the media: Opening up to the research centers, the external experts, and civil society institutions, establishment of an Arab parliamentary research nucleus that would serve as the promote of Arab expertise in parliamentary work, publishing a unified Arab report on Arab parliamentary life and expansion of the Arab parliamentary media activities.