Despite multi-million dollar spending by donor countries such as Australia and New Zealand on parliamentary training, the effectiveness of parliaments, which is hereby defined by the ability of parliaments to be responsive to voters’ needs, has not had significant improvements in the Pacific region. Some of the reasons suggested to be responsible for the weak state of Pacific parliaments include, a clash between traditional and modern systems of governance, smallness of population and ethnic heterogeneity as well as the weakness of political parties in the region. However, successes in countries faced with similar challenges elsewhere in the world, such as Mauritius and Botswana, suggest that such challenges are surmountable in the presence of better ways to strengthen these parliaments. This paper argues that, in order to improve the effectiveness of parliaments in nascent democracies, targeted and meaningful legislative reforms should be employed prior to employing other approaches to strengthening parliaments. Tonga is used to demonstrate this reality Analysis of parliamentary training programs is made and subsequent reforms suggested which, if applied in timely way, could significantly improve the effectiveness of Tonga’s parliament. Importantly, some of the recommendations drawn have a wider relevance to improving the effectiveness of parliaments in other emerging democracies.