World Parliamentary Forum focus on sustainable development
Members of Parliament from 49 countries congregated in Bali, Indonesia for a two-day forum to dialogue about promoting sustainable development in their respective nations.
With the theme “World Parliamentary Forum on Sustainable Development-Achieving the 2030 Agenda through Inclusive Development”, the forum also featured a Fiji delegation led by the Speaker Hon. Dr Jiko Luveni, Hon. Howard Politini, Hon. Mohammed Dean, Hon. Ro Kiniviliame Kiliraki and Hon. Parmod Chand.
In her presentation, Hon. Dr Luveni stressed the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote a viable and healthier economy.
Hon. Dr Luveni said; “Prominent in this role is the mandatory requirement to analyse public input through gender lenses to ensure issues pertaining to women empowerment is considered”.
“Secondly, Parliament has informally selected committee Members of Parliament to become SDG champions in Parliament to ensure the acronym SDG and their targets continue to be heard during debates in all Parliament sittings.
“The Fijian Parliament diaries and notebooks include a page outlining all SDGs to be used as a tool reminding all the Members of the 17 SDGs.
“Also, included in the introductory pages are Fiji’s demographic indicators reflecting male or female Members by age groups. This tool is available to all MPs at all times particularly, to measure effective progress on development programmes and sufficiency of the budgets allocated.”
Speaker also highlighted the effectiveness of the Speaker’s Debate, which has been attracting thousands of Fijians who actively participate in a bid to question its panellists, particularly Ministers on the progress of the implementation of the SDGs in their line Ministries.
She also shared some of the Fijian Government’s policies and initiatives on eradicating poverty, unemployment, and promoting education to name a few.
Hon Dr Luveni was also the co-chair of the Open-Ended Consultation on the Draft Bali Declaration-“Achieving the 2030 Agenda through Inclusive Development” which was adopted on the last day of the forum.
Meanwhile, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Parliament of the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of Fiji to allow the two countries to work together and exchange knowledge and information, and also assist each other in achieving SDGs.
The forum was from September 6th-7th.
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