THE SECOND CONFERENCE OF PRESIDING OFFICERS OF PARLIAMENTS WILL CLARIFY THE IPU’S ROLE IN RELATION TO THE UN
A Preparatory Committee made up of some fifteen Speakers of Parliament met yesterday and today at IPU Headquarters in Geneva to draw up plans for a second world Conference of Presiding Officers of Parliaments.
The Conference will take place in lalate August or early September 2005. It will build on the conclusions and commitments made at the first ever global gathering of Speakers of Parliaments who met at United Nations Headquarters on the occasion of the Millennium Assembly.
The 2nd Conference will aim to operationalise the role of parliaments at the international level. The President of the IPU, Chilean Senator Sergio Páez, declared "The Preparatory Committee has started to assemble the building blocks to create the political will within parliaments and governments to give the IPU certain political and operational responsibilities in matters such as the promotion of peace and security, democracy, human rights and gender parity".
The IPU Secretary General, Anders B. Johnsson, added that the 2nd Conference would also offer an important opportunity to evaluate progress achieved on the basis of the commitments made by the Speakers attending the 1st Conference to provide a parliamentary dimension to international cooperation and thus offer support to the United Nations. In the same vein, he said that they will assess action taken in parliaments to advance progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
The First Conference of Presiding Officers of National Parliaments, which took place in 2000 at the UN Headquarters in New York on the occasion of the Millennium Assembly, gathered 150 Speakers of Parliament, who adopted a Declaration of support to the UN activities.
The members of the Preparatory Committee present in Geneva were:
- Ms. Katalin Szili, Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary
- Mr. Abdulhadi Majali, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Jordan
- Ms. Ingrida Udre, Speaker of the Saeima of Latvia
- Mr. Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, Speaker of the National Assembly of Mali
- Mr. Joseph Michael Perera, Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka
- Mr. Björn von Sydow, Speaker of the Riksdag of Sweden
- Mr. Mosé Tjitendero, Speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia
- Mr. Guy Nzouba Ndama, Speaker of the National Assembly of Gabon
- Mr. Pier Ferdinando Casini, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy
- Mr. Francis K. Ole Kaparo, Speaker of the National Assembly of Kenya.
Mr. Lü Congmin, Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress of China and Mr. Guennadi Seleznev, Former Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, were also present, as were Mr. Robert del Picchia, Executive President of the French IPU Group, and Mr. John Austin, President of the British IPU Group, representing the two co-founders of the IPU, France and the United Kingdom.
A senior official of the United Nations, Mr. Michael Moller, Director of Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs, also attended the Preparatory Committee, which was chaired by the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Senator Sergio Páez.
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Established in 1889 and with its Headquarters in Geneva, the IPU, the oldest multilateral organisation, currently has 138 affiliated national parliaments and five regional assemblies as associate members. The organisation of the world's parliaments also has an office as Permanent Observer with the United Nations in New York.
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| Contact for additional information or interviews: |
Mrs. Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer
5, ch. du Pommier, CH - 1218 Le Grand-Saconnex / Geneva
Tel. +4122 919 41 16/27
Fax: +4122 919 41 60, 919 41 97
E-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org or cbl@mail.ipu.org |
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