REFLECTIONS ON CPA ACTIVITIES AHEAD OF THE 66th COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE IN GHANA

The issue of the CPA’s legal status remains my top priority as we continue efforts to persuade the UK Government to legislate whilst, at the same time, doing the work to set up a new non-charitable entity and prepare benchmarks for a potential relocation of CPA Headquarters outside of the United Kingdom.

CPA Regional Conferences provide excellent opportunities for the CPA Branches with others in their Region to get together and learn from each other. I am always grateful to be invited to attend Regional Conferences. At the time of writing, I have returned recently from the 59th CPA Canada Regional Conference in Regina, Saskatchewan and the 9th CPA India Regional Conference in Udaipur, Rajasthan with the CPA Chairperson. During the same week that the CPA Canada Region met, it was also the Regional Conference for the CPA Caribbean, Americas and the Atlantic (CAA) Region where the CPA Headquarters was ably represented by our Chairperson, Hon. Ian Liddell-Grainger and the CPA Deputy Secretary-General, Jarvis Matiya.

Later this year, I look forward to attending the 40th CPA Australia and Pacific Regional Conference in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Earlier this year, I also attended the 52nd CPA British Islands and Mediterranean (BIM) Regional Conference in London. I am delighted that we have been able to return to a programme of CPA Regional Conferences this year.

CPA’s Regions are a source of great strength. I attended the CPA Africa Regional Conferences in Abuja, Nigeria and Freetown, Sierra Leone in 2021 and 2022 respectively. At both, I was impressed by the powerful voices of women Parliamentarians expressed through the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians network. Hon Zainab Gimba, who is now the CWP Chairperson, delivered a passionate speech in Abuja at the opening ceremony of the Conference in 2021.

Sierra Leone’s recent election saw a very welcome increase in the number of women elected to Parliament. Increasing women’s representation is an important priority for the CPA and CWP. It is part of our wider work to promote Gender Sensitive Parliaments.

This issue of The Parliamentarian also features an article on overcoming the barriers to women’s representation in The Gambia by Hon. Fatoumatta Njai, MP, Chairperson of the National Assembly Committee on Gender, Children and Welfare who I met on my visit to the CPA Gambia Branch earlier this year.

When I visit CPA Branches and Regional Conferences I often ask about communication. The CPA brings together thousands of legislators and parliamentary staff. Some are very involved in the CPA’s work, but many are less familiar with what we do. The Parliamentarian is a vitally important channel of communication, and I am immensely grateful to all contributors as well as the members of the Editorial Advisory Board. The CPA Order Paper is a newer initiative sharing crucial information via email throughout the year. I am always grateful for thoughts and feedback about how we can best communicate with our membership, and I am mindful that communication is a two-way process.

The CPA Headquarters is keen to hear from you as well as being determined to provide accessible information for our Members and parliamentary staff across the Commonwealth. Research undertaken by our Communications team looked into the ways in which recent CPA Parliamentary Academy participants had heard about the Academy. The highest scoring answer was ‘from a colleague’. This finding demonstrates something very significant for an organisation like ours. We can often maximise our impact by engaging well with Members and then encouraging those Members to ‘spread the word’. Parliamentarians and parliamentary staff are busy people which is why the CPA Parliamentary Academy was devised to be flexible and available online so that courses can be undertaken as and when participants have the time.

In June 2023, the CPA Alberta Branch and Legislative Assembly of Alberta kindly hosted the third CPA Parliamentary Academy Residency programme in Canada, following the first two Residency programmes in Sydney and Cape Town last year. The next Residency programme will be hosted by the Scottish Parliament in October 2023, and I look forward to meeting the participants there.

At the end of May 2023, I was pleased to be part of a CPA site visit to Accra, Ghana, as part of our preparations for the forthcoming 66th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC). Since then, we have been working closely with the CPA Ghana Branch and the Parliament of Ghana to prepare for the Conference. I am delighted that, as part of the 66th CPC, Ghana will host the inaugural Emilia Monjowa Lifaka Lecture. The Hon. Emilia Lifaka was the Chairperson of the CPA from 2017 until her sad and untimely death in 2021. The Lecture is intended to provide a fitting tribute to her work. I am pleased that Betty Abeng will be delivering the inaugural Lecture. Betty is the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Education Trust, formerly the Commonwealth Institute. Born in the late Hon Lifaka’s beloved home country of Cameroon, Betty will address the importance of education in the Commonwealth. This will be timely as 2023 is the mid-point of the UN’s Agenda 2030. Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) focuses on the importance of education.

The SDGs are an important theme throughout the work of the CPA. Currently, our Programmes Team is developing a CPA Parliamentary Academy course on the SDGs, which we plan to launch at the UN SDGs Summit in New York in September 2023. Agenda 2030 sets out a detailed and ambitious set of goals, targets and indicators. Achieving them was always going to be challenging but the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has made this challenge even more formidable. The CPA is keen to support our Members to be an important part of the response to this challenge.

In May 2023, the CPA Small Branches network held a workshop kindly hosted by the City of London Corporation to address disaster risk management and the issues faced by the smallest jurisdictions in the world when disaster strikes. Attendees came from thirteen Parliaments from across the Commonwealth and the workshop was organised in partnership with the Institute for Hazard, Risk and Resilience at Durham University. It was a very positive and constructive week and demonstrated once again that the CPA Small Branches network provides a vital platform to address some of the major issues facing the Commonwealth and the wider world.

The UN SDG16 seeks to “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels". Strong, independent Parliaments are a vital element in the delivery of all of the Global Goals but especially, and most explicitly, they are crucial for SDG16. The CPA’s ‘Recommended Benchmarks for Democratic Legislatures’ were first published in 2006 and updated in 2018. Recently, we have been allocated funding from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for a Good Governance Project which will enable further CPA Benchmark assessments to be undertaken across the Pacific, Asia and Africa in 2023/2024 and we look forward to working with Commonwealth Parliaments on this project.

2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth. For the CPA, this will be an opportunity to restate the importance of good governance, sustainable development and human rights and the vital part played by Parliaments and Legislatures throughout the Commonwealth. This will follow this year’s milestone, the 10th anniversary of the Commonwealth Charter, which provides the theme for our 66th CPC in Accra, Ghana - 'The Commonwealth Charter 10 years on: Values and Principles for Parliaments to Uphold'. I look forward to meeting many of you there if not before.

In the meantime, please always feel free to contact me with any ideas, suggestions or questions for the CPA.

By the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Stephen Twigg

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