The 160 MPs in attendance also praised the draft document still under negotiation that, for the first time ever, would recognize a strong role for parliaments in the development of the Least Developed Countries. “The underlying problem in the LDCs is governance. That means skewed power relations, lack of representation of the poor and other groups, and weak accountability all around”, Mr. Anders B. Johnsson, IPU Secretary General, said at the meeting. “Parliaments are essential to change all that”, he added.
The MPs also committed to reviewing the institutional processes of their respective parliaments with a view to helping mainstream the new Programme of Action at all levels of policy-making. “No longer will a plan for the LDCs stand alone until it’s forgotten”, said the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the co-host of the Forum together with the IPU. “We will work harder to make sure that parliaments take on board the Programme of Action and work with all development partners, including civil society, to support its implementation”.
The Forum is the culmination of a series of consultations, known as the parliamentary track, to provide input to the UN conference. The High Representative for the LDCs, Mr. Diarra, expressed his “total satisfaction with the contribution of the parliamentary community”, and went on “to wish that the cooperation between his Office and the IPU that has now taken off will grow stronger, both politically and operationally, in the course of the next decade.”
The Forum also saw the launch of a joint IPU-UN project to help LDC parliaments overcome some of the capacity constraints that have long weakened their oversight, legislative, and representative functions. The project builds on a system of parliamentary focal points that would be further strengthened and expanded to include non-LDC parliaments – in what amounts to a new expression of development cooperation
The IPU will address the plenary of the UN conference tomorrow, when a Parliamentary Message from the recent 124th IPU Assembly in Panama City will also be introduced. Fifty-five parliaments were represented at the Forum including the European Parliament as an associate member of the IPU.
Other press releases