The General-Secretary of the United Nations (UN), Mr António Guterres, believes parliaments across the world have an important role to play in the global effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and build a better world.
Delivering a video message at the opening of the G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, yesterday, the UN Chief said he welcomed the summit’s theme of “stronger parliaments for sustainable recovery”. He went on to outline urgent actions required for the world’s sustainable recovery. These include addressing global warming and the SDGs.
Mr Guterres believes that to save the planet from the effects of climate change, the world needs to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, scale up adaptation finance, and address loss and damage from disaster.
“And to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals we need an SDG stimulus and the G20 Summit in Bali is the place to start. The SDG stimulus should include an increase in concessional funding to developing countries, greater debt relief and expanded liquidity. Countries everywhere need to embed their national budgets in the SGDs and direct greater investment in social protection and digitalisation,” he said.
He told the Speakers of parliaments that G20 governments need to mandate multilateral banks to overhaul their business models to support a transition to renewable energy and build climate resilient economies. “In all these and more, parliaments are indispensable partners. Together let us do everything in our power to build the most sustainable, resilient and peaceful world,” said the UN Secretary-General.
The UN believes that the world needs responses that are people-oriented and multilateral in approach, cooperative in nature and global in scope to address challenges of soaring inflation, crunching debt, widening inequalities, deepening poverty, raging conflicts and the burning planet.
The President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Mr Duarte Pacheco, then told the parliamentary Speakers that they need to show the people they represent that they are committed to their work. “We need to protect the interests of the citizens, provide a better world for them, with dignity and respect – free from fear, free from wars.
“As parliamentary leaders, we need to find a way to respect and consolidate the rules-based international system and reinforce peace so that we can effectively focus our activity as parliamentarians on meeting the needs and expectations of our citizens,” he said.
Commenting on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, he said: “War is never a solution. We may have differences, but dialogue and diplomacy should be the tool to solve it, never a war.
“There can be no peace without development, and there can be no development without peace. And there can be neither peace nor sustainable development without the observance of human rights and mental freedoms. This is what we mean by people-centred policies,” said the IPU President.
He also called on the Speakers to exercise their parliamentary leadership for more effective multilateralism that delivers peace and sustainable development for the people and the planet.
Mr Pacheco said the IPU as a global organisation of national parliaments was ready to do its part and has developed a new strategy that will focus on building strong and effective parliaments and ensuring accountability at all levels. “We have developed tools and criteria to help advance democratic governance, gender equality, youth participation in politics and public engagement in the work of parliaments.
“We are investing a lot of time and energy in developing the parliamentary dimension of global governance. And I hope that this parliamentary dimension can be strengthened and we can convince our governments of the need to formally acknowledge the fact that parliaments through their legislative, budgetary and oversight functions can and should provide substantive contribution to the G20 process,” he said.
The Parliament of South Africa is also participating in the G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit and National Assembly Speaker Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula is scheduled to speak on social inclusion, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Original article by SA Parliament:
