I don't know if I'll be able to respond comprehensively to your question, but I want to give an example of why parliaments are important.
I was recently in Rwanda at a conference organized by the World Bank for parliamentarians. It was on development. The whole question was the role of the private sector. Many parliamentarians from Africa participated in the conference. I witnessed an exchange between a senior executive of a bank and a parliamentarian. In very brief terms the banker told the parliamentarian, “You learn about finance and then I will talk to you, because there is no point in talking to you unless you get educated.” I wouldn't say that the executive was very subtle, but there was a little bit of truth in what he was saying, in that parliamentarians are not elected because they know about finance or because they know about economics; they are elected because they have the trust of the people.
What I am trying to say is that in order for the private sector to thrive in emerging economies, there has to be an understanding of what the role of Parliament is in terms of legislation and oversight of the executive. In that respect it is very important for development purposes to have an important interlocutor with the private sector, which can be Parliament or the executive.