Celebrating International Day of Parliamentarism and the United Nations at 75

View from the CPA Chairperson

Hon. Emilia Monjowa Lifaka, MP, Chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Cameroon

The International Day of Parliamentarism is celebrated every year on 30 June. The Day was established in 2018 through a United Nations General Assembly Resolution.

Celebrating an international day for Parliamentarians and Parliaments is a unique opportunity for organisations like the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA). With our membership of over 17,000 Parliamentarians spread across 180 Legislatures, we must use this opportunity to take stock of the importance of parliamentary democracy and its value to our societies and our global community.

The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) is the second-largest of the four major office sites of the United Nations. It is located in the Palais des Nations building constructed for the League of Nations between 1929 and 1938 at Geneva in Switzerland, and expanded in the early 1950s and late 1960s.

I would like to use this important day to focus on adaption and diversity. Adaption was a key theme for our recent Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference held in Uganda in September last year. At that time, over 500 Parliamentarians were able to come together to share ideas, build networks and learn from one another. But now the Commonwealth is facing one of its greatest challenges in tackling the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Parliamentarians are now focusing their minds on creating safe and secure environments for their countries and constituencies. To succeed in this endeavour, Parliamentarians and our Parliaments have had to embrace rapid and uncertain change in the form of technical, social and cultural adaptions; from how we communicate and travel to the ways in which we legislate, represent and scrutinise governments. As such, adapting to new ways of working is essential.

If we are to be adaptive, innovative and have all the tools needed to overcome the challenges we face today and in the future, we must have a diversity of voices and people sharing ideas, building networks and learning from one another. When one voice is stifled, we are all weakened.

Recently, I have been struck by the Black Lives Matter movement that was started in the United States and has now spread across the globe - a movement that at its heart is about tackling racism and division. What this has reinforced in me, is that nobody should be left behind and nobody should be silenced because of the colour of their skin, their gender, age, ethnicity, religion, language, culture, sexuality or abilities.

These values are at the heart of what the Commonwealth stands for. This was reflected in this year’s Commonwealth Day theme ‘Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming’. The message is clear; together we are stronger, and together we can overcome our greatest challenges.

Within the CPA, we champion these principles in enabling women and disabled Parliamentarians to work collaboratively through the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) and Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities (CPwD) networks as well as those from small jurisdictions via the CPA Small Branches network.

As Parliamentarians, we are the representatives of our communities, and as such, we must speak for all those who might be at a potential disadvantage because of their perceived differences and the negative prejudices of others. Even if we as representatives are not reflective of the diversity of our people, we must as Parliamentarians still speak for all and ensure their views, ideas and knowledge can be voiced in the Chambers of our Parliaments, in the meeting rooms of government departments or on the streets of our constituencies. In my view, that is what being a Parliamentarian is for and why we should use this day, not to celebrate ourselves, but to remind us what our duties are as Parliamentarians and to those we serve.

As the United Nations celebrates its 75th anniversary and we mark the UN’s many successes, we are also reminded of the great disruption for the world at present, compounded by an unprecedented global health crisis with severe economic and social impacts and the role that international organisations can play. We must ensure that we continue the international dialogue, and when we can come together again, that we discuss our priorities as a global family and how we can build a better future for all.

The global COVID-19 pandemic is a clear reminder of the need for international cooperation across borders, sectors and even generations. The global response will determine how fast the world recovers, whether the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are achieved, and how well the global community combats the many challenges that we face; from the climate crisis to future pandemics, inequalities in our societies and new forms of violence, and the huge changes in technology and population growth.

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association encourages the greater engagement of Parliaments and Parliamentarians in UN decision-making processes and in the work of the UN agencies, and the CPA Headquarters Secretariat is further facilitating this through its networks. For example, the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) is working with UN Women in many areas of gender equality and the CPA Small Branches network is partnering with UNESCO’s Small Islands and Indigenous Knowledge Section on a number of new initiatives including biodiversity and climate change.

The CPA will continue to promote international partnerships and to support Parliaments and Parliamentarians to play their role in the global dialogue. In many countries, public trust in traditional institutions like Parliaments is in decline and across the world, relations between different countries have been tested. It is clear that the need for collective action is needed more than ever.