The forthcoming IPU Assembly will be held in Nairobi, a short flight away from a region that is in the throes of a terrible famine. The IPU President has called on all parliaments to play an active role and press their governments to disburse funds to alleviate the crisis, and many have already responded to his appeal.
Kenyatta International Conference Centre |
Other issues of vital interest to the region are also high on the Assembly agenda. One of them is the long term instability in Somalia. Nobody can fault the Parliament of Kenya for the support it has provided to the Parliament of Somalia, which is now finally established and functioning on home territory in Baidoa. The Speaker of the Parliament, Mr. Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, is invited to address the opening plenary of the Assembly to update the parliamentarians in Nairobi on the latest developments.
Meanwhile two panel discussions will be held in the wings of the meeting. One, on Africa's development, will feature parliamentary, World Bank and NGO experts, and a second on HIV/AIDS and its impact on children, which the IPU is setting up with UNICEF and UN/AIDS, will be addressed by Stephen Lewis, the special envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The Assembly will also be hearing from Nobel Prize-winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya, the founder of the Green Belt Movement. She will be addressing the meeting on the question of environmental degradation. Other items on the parliamentarians' agenda, equally relevant to the African scenario, are the proliferation of small arms, and violence against women.
