Parliaments are playing a critical role in the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. The 2021 Arab Regional Parliamentary Forum on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers a timely opportunity for regional dialogue and peer learning regarding the pandemic and for exploring possible solutions to common challenges.

The Forum will consider the role of parliaments in ensuring that no one is left behind. It will focus on existing attempts to strengthen legislative frameworks to protect the rights of older people, one of the region's most vulnerable groups, facing intersectional challenges including health risks, poverty and exclusion.

Main discussion points:

• Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the Arab region;
• Parliaments’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic through their lawmaking, oversight, representative and budgeting functions;
• Parliaments’ role in ensuring no one is left behind during crisis response and in efforts to build back better, with a particular focus on older people;
• Parliaments’ institutional responses that have enabled their continued functioning despite restrictions on mobility and newly imposed safety requirements.

The Forum is being jointly organized by ESCWA and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in partnership with the Islamic Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. Key messages will feed into the Arab Forum for Sustainable Development for 2022.

Documents for the event are available in English and Arabic.