Literatura académica sobre el tema "Legislature Assembly"

The 9th National Assembly in Nigeria was elected in 2015 and represents the most extensive democratic period of legislative governance in the country’s history. This study examines the performance of the National Assembly as a mechanism of democratic governance in Nigeria. Specifically, we explore the legislative processes used by the Assembly, the extent of its accountability to the electorate, and the way it has impacted Nigerian democracy and development. Structural functionalism was adopted as the theoretical framework on the function of the Legislature, we employed qualitative methods to explain the Legislature and good governance, and evaluate the performance of the ninth assembly of the Nigerian State. The analysis of its roles in the creation of laws revealed a sizable disparity in terms of public involvement and consultation. Findings also revealed that the poor relationship between the executive and the legislative branch of government has slowed the development of democratic governance. It is recommended that Nigerian Legislators should prioritize legislative productivity and concentrate on passing legislation that will directly benefit society. In conclusion it was deduced that there is a substantial disparity between legislators and their constituents, according to the appraisal of legislators' performance in the Ninth Assembly in terms of representation as most law makers are perceived to be self-serving.

Purpose: The study examined the legislative influence of women in the context of gender quotas in Kenya’s National Assembly of the 11th parliament (2013-207). This article focuses on the methods women parliamentarians used to assert legislative influence. Methodology: This was a descriptive case study which focused on all 68 women in the National Assembly. Respondents were identified through stratified sampling based on: pathway to parliament; membership and leadership of parliamentary structures; contribution to debate; and sponsorship of Bills enacted. A total of 11 women were interviewed, derived from four of the seven parliamentary political parties, specifically the two largest political coalitions which contributed 94% of the legislature. The study also interviewed four purposively sampled key informants (KIs) - three male and one female. The data was processed manually, analysed and presented under each study objective. Sources of primary data were coded as follows: WL (Woman Legislator), ML (Male Legislator) and KI (Key Informant). All respondents were allocated specific numbers for identification and acknowledgement. Findings: The study established that women legislators used the following methods to influence legislation: mobilisation of male colleagues; solidarity across political parties; activism; leveraging committee positions; reliance on the National Assembly leadership; and compromise and conciliation. It notes that the methods were effective in some circumstances but failed in others. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study outlines how various methods were applied by women legislators in Kenya’s National Assembly 2013-2017, the first time quotas were applied in Kenyan elections. It fills the gap in earlier studies that did not document these methods. The study notes that the methods were not intrinsically weak but their effectiveness was limited by circumstances, especially the attitude of male legislators. It illustrates the importance of diversifying approaches to influence legislation. The study recommends that women legislators should: work with supportive male legislators and other pressure groups in the legislature; introduce Bills early in the legislative calendar to improve chances of success; receive training on parliamentary work; and occupy influential parliamentary leadership positions.

Family-friendly (FF) working practices in political institutions have attracted scant attention from scholars, arguably reflecting the scarcity of their implementation. Using a survey of legislators and qualitative interviews, we examine for the first time how satisfied elected members of two new legislatures (the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament) are with FF working practices. We offer four possible explanations—parenthood, age of the legislator, sex, and the distance between the legislator's constituency and the legislature—for the variation in satisfaction. Our findings suggest that being a woman and having a greater distance between legislature and constituency exerted significant negative effects on legislators' satisfaction with FF working practices. In contrast, legislators over age 60 were significantly more likely to be satisfied with FF working practices in the new legislatures. We conclude by outlining future research avenues for comparative scholars of gender and politics interested in the effectiveness and resilience of FF working practices, in particular highlighting the importance of looking beyond the parent–child caring relationship to other caring and domestic obligations.

Mixed-member electoral systems embrace two views of representation by electing some legislators in single-member district elections and others in a proportional representation election. This can potentially create a “mandate divide” in legislatures, because single-member district legislators have an incentive to embrace parochial issues and proportional representation legislators have an incentive to center on national issues. Previous studies of this question have only found limited evidence of its existence. The author argues that the level of party system institutionalization will fundamentally determine whether a mandate divide will exist in a mixed-member legislature. Using roll-call voting data from the Hungarian National Assembly, the Russian Duma, and the Ukrainian Rada, the author analyzes patterns of party discipline in each legislature. The empirical results show that a mandate divide only existed in the legislature with the most weakly institutionalized party system, the Russian Duma.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of women in the Georgia General Assembly and determines the impact of gender on the activities of state legislators, specifically in the areas of committee assignments and sponsored legislation from 2003 to 2014. Design/methodology/approach The approach set forth in this analysis seeks to answer four research questions employing quantitative data regarding female legislator involvement in activities of the state legislature and compare these findings with their male colleagues over a ten-year period. Findings Some of the key findings include that female representative sponsor fewer bills and participate in fewer committees than their male counterparts. The only legislative area female representatives exercise greater involvement is in government committees. The paper concludes with policy recommendations on how to address the current standing of women in the Georgia General Assembly. Originality/value A value of this analysis is that its content can support comparative work that can prove helpful to future research goals. As the most comprehensive analysis of its kind in Georgia, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the state legislature.

The legislature is an institution which represents the common and collective interests of the citizens through the enactment of laws and the exercise of oversight functions on the activities of the executive arm of government. For stable and sustainable international peace, nation-building and good governance require building effective societal, economic and political structures that meet the needs of the people. In the quest for nation-building in a democratic state like Nigeria, the exercise of effective legislative oversight function is crucial. It acts to provide checks and balances in cases when the executive branch operates unconstitutionally. It also aims to ensure that all relevant societal groups are included in and benefit from the nation-building and development exercise and that government policies and budgets are implemented in an effective, efficient, transparent and accountable manner. The power of oversight is constitutionally provided to the Nigerian legislature to enable the National Assembly to curtail corruption, inefficiency, or embezzlement in the executive or administration of laws within its legislative right and in the disbursement and administration of funds appropriated by the Acts. Unfortunately, the Nigerian legislature’s capacity to carry out its oversight functions remains ineffective because the legislature and culture are in their infancy and often confronted by many challenges. The focus of this paper is to examine the roles of the national assembly in promoting good governance and nation-building. This paper further recommends that the citizens elect upstanding individuals with no histories of corruption and greed.

Ideal point estimators are typically based on an assumption that all legislators are equally responsive to modeled dimensions of legislative disagreement; however, particularistic constituency interests and idiosyncrasies of individual legislators introduce variation in the degree to which legislators cast votes predictably. I introduce a Bayesian heteroskedastic ideal point estimator and demonstrate by Monte Carlo simulation that it outperforms standard homoskedastic estimators at recovering the relative positions of legislators. In addition to providing a refinement of ideal point estimates, the heteroskedastic estimator recovers legislator-specific error variance parameters that describe the extent to which each legislator's voting behavior is not conditioned on the primary axes of disagreement in the legislature. Through applications to the roll call histories of the U.S. Congress, the E.U. Parliament, and the U.N. General Assembly, I demonstrate how to use the heteroskedastic estimator to study substantive questions related to legislative incentives for low-dimensional voting behavior as well as diagnose unmodeled dimensions and nonconstant ideal points.

The legislature is unarguably the fulcrum upon which democracy rests. Democracy, in this context, is representative government. Thus, the institution of the legislature as an assembly of elected representatives becomes the engine room of the structural framework upon which democratic governance is built. As history has shown, the beauty of legislature is greatly enhanced by a healthy multi-party system wherein elected representatives from different party backgrounds engage one another alongside party ideological positions with a view to deliberating on issue of governance and socio-economic well-being of the people. Legislative cross-carpeting in Nigeria is becoming a norm rather than exigency, and is taking a negative toll on the capacity of legislatures to fulfill their mandates as against functioning as merely rubber-stamp annexes of the executive/ruling party. This study examines the impacts of the wanton cross-carpeting, often times bereft of any ideological underpinning, that have characterized legislative assemblies in Nigeria and its implications on good governance. Among others, it concludes that concrete legal and political frameworks must be developed to check the direction of cross-carpeting in Nigeria’s legislative houses if good governance is to be entrenched.

This study employs recursive path analysis techniques to develop a causal model of legislative success in the “one party-no party” state legislature of Arkansas. Utilizing a unique five-step process to measure bill-passage through the Arkansas House, four direct paths to legislative success were identified: educational level, age, race, and seniority. The final model suggests a legislative body in transition from amateur status and exclusivity to one more autonomous and competitive.

Purpose: Application of gender quotas in the 2013 general elections in Kenya led to 68 women legislators joining the National Assembly. This was the largest number of women elected to the legislature since independence in 1963. Studies show that such surges embolden women to pursue legislative agenda on gender equality and social welfare issues. This article examines women legislators’ quests for further increased numbers in Kenya’s National Assembly 2013 -2017 and the results. Methodology: This was a descriptive study of Kenya’s National Assembly of the 11th parliament (2013 -2017). A total of 11 women and four key informants were identified through stratified and purposive sampling respectively. Data was collected using semi-structured interview schedules. Responses were recorded in writing and audio-tape. The study also did a content analysis of the Hansard. Data was transcribed, manually processed, analysed and discussed under each study objective. Quantitative data was captured in tables with descriptions while qualitative data was narrated with inferences. Findings: The study established that efforts to increase women’s numbers in the legislature were unsuccessful because of resistance from male colleagues. However, women achieved an increase in committee membership and leadership. The article concludes that resistance to the proposed affirmative law to increase women’s legislative numbers was rooted in patriarchy and male entitlement to power. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The article demonstrates how the quest to embed affirmative action in law was frustrated by patriarchy. It states that for women to succeed on such pursuits, they need to be assertive and strategic. It further demonstrates that women’s occupation of parliamentary leadership positions enabled them to showcase their abilities and debunk the notion that they are inferior. This coheres with liberal feminism, that marginalising women denies the society the benefit of their talents. The article proposes that women should seek influential parliamentary committees instead of seeking a general spread in all of them. A constitutional amendment to have an unequivocal provision on elections that automates the desired proportions of women to men in the National Assembly is also recommended.

In the years of the Republican Triennio (1796-1799), Northern and Central Italy found itself transformed by a new political establishment rooted in the principles of revolution, republicanism, and national identity. These territories came together in 1797 to form the First Cisalpine Republic (1797-1799). Guided by the French Constitution of Year III, The Cisalpine Republic saw the materialization of a new political culture which blended French Revolutionary political practices, Italian political philosophy, and Cisalpine political development. This political culture was formed and developed inside the political and ideological center of the Cisalpine legislative apparatus, the lower house of the Cisalpine Assemblies, the Gran Consiglio. From 2 Frimaire to 14 Fructidor Republican Year VI (22 November 1797 to 31 August 1798), the Gran Consiglio, and the men who served as representatives within its chambers, was the point of legislative and political cultural formation, thanks to its constitutional mandate as the conceptualizer and incubator of legislative resolutions. This period saw the greatest moment of political and constitutional autonomy in Northern Italy during the entire Triennio, allowing for a looser and more progressive blending of Italian and French Revolutionary principles within Cisalpine legislation. This study will look at how the political and legislative culture of the Cisalpine Republic came to be created in the Gran Consiglio by examining the events which took place between 2 Frimaire and 14 Fructidor, and by understanding the personal backgrounds of Gran Consiglio representatives which shaped the way they debated and formed legislation. Through the use of archival resources, published acts of law and the debates recorded in the processi verbali of the Council itself, this thesis aims to provide evidence of the central role the Gran Consiglio played in development of Cisalpine administrative, social and political structures, its interactions with foreign and domestic institutions, and its place as the origins of early nineteenth century Italian political identity.

A ciência política brasileira produziu explicações consistentes no que se refere ao funcionamento da democracia pós-1988. Os mecanismos de governabilidade e o processo decisório do sistema político brasileiro encontram-se amplamente discutidos pela literatura sob a rubrica do presidencialismo de coalizão. No entanto, duas agendas de pesquisa sobre nosso sistema político não foram suficientemente testadas, quais sejam: o estudo sobre as relações Executivo-Legislativo nas unidades subnacionais e os mecanismos de checks and balances em nossa democracia. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar o ponto de toque ou mesmo a junção entre estas duas agendas: a dimensão de fiscalização e o controle nas unidades subnacionais brasileiras. Para isso, o desenho de pesquisa é composto pelo balanço do estado da arte das respectivas literaturas relevantes, juntamente à análise dos dados de 20 Estados da Federação Brasileira, na legislatura 2007-2010.
The Brazilian political science produced consistent explanations about the functioning of democracy in the post-1988 period. The mechanisms of governability and decision-making of the Brazilian political system are widely discussed in the literature under the rubric of coalition presidentialism. However, two research agendas on our political system have not been sufficiently tested, namely: the study of the Executive-Legislative relations in subnational units and mechanisms of checks and balances in our democracy. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the touch point or even the junction between these two frameworks: the dimension of supervision and control in the Brazilian subnational units. To accomplish these objectives, the research design consists in the review of the relevant literature, along with the analysis of data from 20 states of the Brazilian Federation - from 2007 to 2010.

This thesis explores institutional features of the Fifth Republic in France that affect women's representation, both in terms of their access to elected office and in terms of their ability to substantively represent women once elected. After identifying factors that were particularly favourable to women in the 1997 Parliament, it assesses the institutional reforms enacted from 1997-2002, which include not only the Constitutional Amendment and the Parity Law, but also limitations on the cumul des mandats, reform of the Senate, the creation of a statut de l'elu (defining elected officials' benefits and rights) and of the new parliamentary Women's Delegations. It attempts a holistic appraisal of the institutional reforms, and their effect on patterns of political recruitment. The second part analyses practices and power within the Palais-Bourbon to assess gender differences in access to parliamentary posts and tasks. It investigates the National Assembly as a 'gendered institution' and asks whether women are in a position to make a difference to the political process and legislative outcomes. It finds perceptible differences in women's and men's access to power, their committee work and use of parliamentary questions. The thesis concludes with a study of the Women's Delegation. After investigating the rationale and circumstances of its creation, the institutional status of the Delegation within the Assembly is analysed. Its contribution to legislation and its modus operandi in the 1997 Parliament, as well as its integration into the National Assembly are examined, in order to ascertain whether it has the potential to enhance women's substantive representation and to provide' safe space' for women Deputies.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between personal demographic variables of Indiana's legislators and their voting records regarding laws associated with tobacco regulation. Personal demographic data of the legislators who were in office in either 1997 and/or 1998 were compared with their voting records on tobacco issues during that same time period. The evidence suggests that Democratic legislators appear to be more in favor of tobacco control than their Republican counterparts and legislators that are members of the House of Representatives are more supportive of tobacco control than their counterparts in the Senate. Conversely, the evidence suggests that there were no statistically significant differences on tobacco voting records when the legislators were grouped by representation of a tobacco district, level of education the legislator has attained, holding an office in their respective chambers, or their occupations other than being a legislator.The results of this study can be used to better educate legislators on the consequences of tobacco use and the benefits of voting for pro-tobacco control legislation. Future studies should include attempts to form a profile of a pro-tobacco control or pro-tobacco industry legislator at both the state and national level.
Department of Physiology and Health Science

Elected multi-party assemblies have existed in Africa on average for no more than two decades. Consolidating democracy and improving the lives of ordinary citizens demands guardian parliaments. Parliaments are comprised predominantly of politicians and, interconnected with citizens and executives, are perceived as core institutions of representative democracies. This dissertation seeks to contribute to a better understanding of African multiparty parliaments and their role in consolidating democracy. The study seeks to comprehend the links between citizens and their elected parliaments in 18 African countries, in the process attempting to predict the prospects of these new democracies. It also focuses on the Assembly of Mozambique to attempt an understanding of the evolution, capacity and functioning of an emerging parliament. The study investigates the perceptions of Mozambican civil leaders toward their parliament, and it looks at the perceptions of Mozambican parliamentarians concerning their roles and their relations with the electorate, and concerning the Assembly’s capacity and powers. This is critical to understanding how democracy has been and will be exercised, since parliamentarians are at the forefront of the process. Each parliament has distinctive characteristics. However, there are common features based on their age and origin. The development of the Mozambican Assembly since the monoparty regime illustrates the challenges and achievements that African parliaments have undergone in the transition to democracy. The findings reveal that African citizens distinguish between presidents and parliaments, which is important given the legacy in Africa of strong executives led by dominant presidents. They also reveal that citizens value the gains made by the multiparty regimes and that parliaments as lawmakers are preferred to presidents. In most countries surveyed, citizens, on average, gave positive evaluations of their parliaments, especially concerning their trustworthiness. Political characteristics outweigh socio-economic status in influencing how citizens perceived parliaments. Party allegiance and perception of electoral fairness are the factors that most influenced how citizens perceived their parliaments. Interviews with Mozambican MPs revealed their frustration over the influence of the Assembly over the national budget. In the MPs’ opinions, direct foreign aid to the budget reduced parliament’s role to that of a rubber stamp, weakening the role of MPs. Mozambican civic leaders saw parliament as an indispensable and critical institution, and they expressed frustration with the extreme party-centricity of MPs, which is perceived as normal by MPs. Distrust between these groups reinforces the sentiment among ruling party members that the party deserves protection. In democracies, MPs from different parties are political opponents and not enemies. In Mozambique, the transition from enemy to adversary is not yet complete. While fragile, parliament has been the only space in Mozambican society where political parties can interact.

The author gives his view of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes of 1921, pointing out its importance at that time, but also its shortcomings. The choice of a centralist, unitary state system is recognized as one of the basic aspirations of the constitution-maker, that resulted in the king's dominant position as an integrative element, which made it impossible to establish (un)wanted balances between the king and parliament. In institutional terms, orleans parliamentarism is analyzed as an established type of parliamentary system of government, and also its functioning in practice. The author analyzed the constitutional position of the National assembly, emphasizing its weakness in relations with the king, explaining instruments such as the absolute legislative veto, through which the king exercised supremacy in the legislative sphere despite the constitutional proclamation to exercise legislative competence jointly. The unlimited right to dissolve the assembly, despite the undivided opinion of the constitutional theory on the prohibition of successive dissolution, further weakened the position of the National assembly, and established the king as an inviolable arbiter in resolving parliamentary crises, which may ultimately confront the people's will. The king's unrestricted right to dissolve parliament usurped the budgetary right of the National assembly, as one of the foundations of the parliamentary system, which further made it possible for the executive to rule without a budget. Constrained by the constitutional arrangement, insufficient representative functions, burdened by the democratic deficit, the National assembly proved to be weak in articulating various political interests, but was the scene of party and national tensions.

Legislative and presidential power, and the center of the constitution in all political systems, after presidential elections. This period has been suspended for a long time. However, it is possible for the institutions that can do this, because there is a constitution in their vicinity, for the exemplary assembly that can be done by the institution that can do this easily, by opening the door to extension, what happened . Actually in the region. To do the constitution by the constitution

If the law is concerned only with social ties, then there are freedoms that are subject to regulation, those whose effects extend to society, in the sense that its exercise affects the freedom of others or the interests of the group, and these freedoms are those related to the field of private activities and organized professions, such as freedom to work with its professional dimension Because it is not one of the privacy of the individual, but rather goes beyond that to society and to power itself. Freedoms whose effects extend beyond the individual to society and to power cannot be absolute, otherwise they would turn into chaos and carry with it the prostitution and aggression against the state and the freedoms of others. Therefore, it must be organized without leading to its denunciation or derogation from it, provided that the issue of its organization is entrusted to Parliament as a representative of the will of the people, just as the authority of Parliament in this regard cannot be absolute power, but rather is constrained by objective constitutional controls and restrictions that impose on it not to diminish From it and not confiscate it, and it just has to organize it in a way that makes it more effective. The legal regulation of freedom must ensure the balance, as far as possible, between the right of the individual to exercise his freedom and the restrictions that Parliament considers to be imposed, that is, achieving a balance between the freedoms that the individual needs and the authority that is indispensable and to the extent that prosperity is achieved for society and the individual. This balance is necessary for all Freedom, which is more binding on some public freedoms that are closely related to democracy, such as freedom of work and opinion, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly And from it, how can a balance be achieved between the legislative organization of public freedoms and its practice in the field of private activities and regulated professions.

Cloud based approach for remanufacturing is becoming a new technical solution for sustainable management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). This paper presents a service-oriented framework of a Cloud Based Remanufacturing System (CBRS) for WEEE. In remanufacturing of WEEE, disassembly plays an important role. However, complete disassembly is rarely an ideal solution due to the high disassembly cost, with the increasing customization and diversity, and more complex assembly processes of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE). Selective disassembly focusing on disassembling only a few selected components is a better choice. In this paper, a Q-Learning based Selective Disassembly Planning (QL-SDP) approach embedded with a multi-criteria decision making model is developed. The multi-criteria decision making model is built according to the legislative and economic considerations of specific stakeholders of WEEE. And the QL-SDP approach is used to achieve optimized selective disassembly planning. An implementation example has been used to verify and demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the approach. The developed QL-SDP approach is designed as a service implemented in the presented CBRS for WEEE.

When the legislative has delimited rights and freedoms illegally, Constitutional Court should step in as an efficient assurance and this forcefulness is undoubtedly related to the structure of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court's organization and election of the members of the Constitutional Court and status have a great importance for freedom of the Court. As a matter of fact, the only way to protect people’s fundamental rights and freedoms is possible with independent verdict. Judiciary which fulfills the function of judgment behalf of the nation and the judges who hold the judicial power, have an indispensable importance. The assurance of people’s right and freedoms could be provided only, when the court has accomplished their mission away from all kinds of pressure and influence. The freedom of judges also means their appointments, employee rights and working condition therefore; in first place, the organization of the Turkish Constitutional Court (General Assembly, Department, Division, Commission), then the election of members of the Turkish Constitutional Court and the status are compared with the regulation of Macedonia, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Spain.

In order to take advantage of the global economy, manufacturing companies have developed a complex and an extended supply chain which includes manufacturing components or parts in LCCs (low-cost countries) and shipping them to factories near to their consumer market for final assembly, customization and distribution. These activities involve several different organizations that follow widely different approaches in logistical management. In order to sustain the long shipment distances in different geographic regions, (i.e. China-Mexico-US-Europe), handling & environmental conditions & shipping modes (Air vs Ground vs Sea); suitable, flexible and economical packaging solutions are required. This flow of semi-finished goods usually requires packaging materials such as carriers (i.e. wooden pallets) and moisture inhibitors (i.e. desiccants) to protect the goods. Competitive pressures, environmental consciousness, customer awareness and legislative requirements have driven manufacturers to review business practices and redesign solutions that are environmentally friendly, as well as help reduce costs in the long run. The author of this paper will present an experience where "non-traditional" packaging is used as an economical and environmental friendly solution to globally transport goods between multiple facilities.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3