Objective 7 2017-2021

For five years, the IPU has been supporting parliaments to have the necessary skills, resources and tools for meaningful action on the SDGs, especially on climate change and health.

As more and more parliaments have engaged with the SDGs, the IPU has provided more support. Between 2016 and 2020, for example, the number of parliaments reviewing national progress on the SDGs grew from less than 25 per cent to more than 55 per cent. This number dipped slightly in 2021, but the overall trend is clear.

Ten parliaments have used the IPU’s self-assessment toolkit to develop their own SDG action plans and integrate the goals into their parliamentary work. The Parliament of Chad set up a Special Committee on Sustainable Development, while Fiji’s Parliament developed an SDG guidance note for its committees. Serbia’s National Assembly did a second self-assessment to evaluate its progress, two years after its first. This helped its Parliamentary SDG Focus Group to amend the budget bill and sharpen the budgetary focus on the SDGs. In a 2018 IPU global survey, more than 50 per cent of parliamentary respondents said they had set up at least one parliamentary mechanism on the SDGs.

Health has been a major priority. Collaboration with parliaments in Bangladesh, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia led to legislative amendments and proposals on women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and on combatting child marriage.

Publications, facilitating this work, included new research on child marriage legislation in the Asia-Pacific region, guidelines on SDG budgeting, a roadmap for parliamentary action on women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, and a handbook on food and nutrition systems.

Uganda’s parliament has been proactive on maternal health, recognizing the need for further dialogue on sexual and re- productive health, including abortion. Tanzania’s parliament has increased funding for maternal health and immunization.

Later, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, the IPU trained more than 100 parliamentary staff in 12 sub-Saharan coun- tries on how legislation can better meet the needs of women, children and adolescents. Botswana’s parliament subsequently reviewed its legislation on adolescent sexu- al and reproductive health. Recognizing the links between COVID-19 and gender-based violence, Botswana’s parliament is also developing new legislation on this topic. In 2020, it passed the Sexual Offenders Registry Bill.

Climate change remained a concern for many parliaments. The IPU gave tailored support on climate change and on green recoveries from COVID-19 to parliaments in Burundi, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as in Central Asia. In Burundi, parliamentarians agreed to raise public awareness on climate change and biodiversity. In 2019, Zimbabwe’s parliament amended its carbon tax policy. In 2021, the IPU and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) sup- ported the Zimbabwean parliament in developing a bill on climate change.

Underpinning its work on climate change, the IPU has developed a range of knowledge products, including toolkits, with partners such as UNEP and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Available in up to five languages, the publications respond to interests frequently cited by parliaments.

Partnerships have been central to the IPU’s work, helping to ensure that legislation is based on the best available scientific evidence. To connect scientific and parliamentary communities, for example, the IPU has partnered with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Economic Commissions, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), UNICEF and the London School of Economics (LSE). Throughout the global pandemic, these partners delivered timely information, helping parliaments to respond appropriately.

In France, Paraguay and South Africa, the IPU and PMNCH helped parliaments to consider women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in their plans for recovery from COVID-19. The PMNCH has said that the IPU played a key role in its work in 20 countries.

Some 41 national parliaments received help from the IPU to connect with the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, unlocking national dialogue and discussions on investments in nutrition.

In total over the past five years, the IPU has organized 28 regional and 23 global events on development issues, enabling thousands of parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to engage with UN processes. These processes have facilitated peer-to-peer discussions, knowledge acquisition and other opportunities for cooperation. The events have stimulated widescale political will for dialogue and the use of sustainable development as a platform for international collaboration.

IPU Assemblies adopted some 11 resolutions on sustainable development. One of these, a 2019 resolution on universal health coverage, led to follow-up action in 70 parliaments either through awareness-raising workshops or outreach activities.

“Even when the global economy shut down as a result of the pandemic, our emissions only dropped by 6 per cent. This illustrates the enormity of the challenge ahead of us. We have to find real, radical and alternative solutions to reduce global temperatures.

As parliamentarians we have a real responsibility. We have a duty to speak for all the people of this planet, including those whose voices are not always heard, and yet are the most affected.”

 

Lord Speaker of the UK House of Lords

Rt. Hon. the Lord McFall of Alcluith at the Parliamentary Meeting at COP26