134th IPU Assembly
Lusaka (Zambia), 19-23 March 2016
Standing Committee on United Nations Affairs
ITEM 5: Institutional arrangements for the implementation
of the Sustainable Development Goals
TALKING POINTS
Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for the opportunity to make a presentation at the beginning of this briefing.
As both parliamentarian and former minister of environment, I have been closely involved in sustainable development issues, nationally and at UN level. I therefore welcome the inclusion of this item on the agenda of the Committee on UN Affairs; our discussion is most timely.
The Parliament of Romania has been a strong promoter of a robust parliamentary dimension in efforts towards achieving the SDGs. In 2015, we hosted a first IPU Regional Seminar on the SDGs, in which delegates from Central and Eastern Europe identified the main steps to be taken by parliaments in order to ensure effective implementation of the Goals at the national level, including through the adoption of sustainable development strategies and addressing environmental risk and climate change.
In the follow-up of this meeting, next month our Parliament will organize a second Regional Seminar on the SDGs. We intend to focus on SDG 16, which highlights the importance of governance, inclusion, participation, rights and security for the achievement of sustainable development, but also on education, as key enabler for all the SDGs. I take this opportunity to invite my colleagues from Central and Eastern Europe to participate in this Seminar; delegates from other regions are most welcome, too.
Dear colleagues,
I was asked to speak about the practical ways in which the SDGs can be mainstreamed in parliaments.
To begin with, when addressing the role of parliaments in achieving the SDGs, there are two fundamental aspects that should guide our work, in my opinion.
Firstly, the SDGs are about country ownership, government accountability and national policy. These are key ingredients for the implementation of the SDGs, as each country has primary responsibility for its own development, hence, the crucial role of parliaments. Secondly, the SDGs-related processes present a unique opportunity for all parliaments to strengthen their legislative, oversight, and representative roles.
Basically, the general lines of action regarding the role of parliaments and of the IPU in relation to the SDGs have already been identified in several IPU documents, particularly the Declaration of the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, the Report of the panel on Translating the SDGs into action, held on the occasion of the same Conference; the Hanoi Declaration, and I would add the Outcome Document of the Regional Seminar on the SDGs for the Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe, which was hosted by the Parliament of Romania, in Bucharest, last year.
The first step for parliaments is to mainstream the SDGs into their work and functioning; the parliamentary committees and processes should pursue all SDGs coherently. This can be done by adapting the committee structure, by revising the parliamentary procedures, by providing appropriate training to the parliamentary staff a.s.o.
In the Parliament of Romania, we have started to restructure the committee system so as to better respond to the SDGs. At the Chamber of Deputies, we have set up in November 2015, within the Foreign Policy Committee that I chair, a Subcommittee for Sustainable Development. The Subcommittee has already begun his work with a series of consultations with the relevant governmental institutions, academics and representatives of the civil society, with a view to establishing a roadmap for revising the National Strategy for Sustainable Development in line with the new SDGs.
Now, coming back to the role of parliaments and their members in implementing the SDGs at national level, there are many actions to be taken:
1. Building political will across party lines to support the SDGs;
2. Increasing public awareness of and support for the SDGs among the key stakeholders – citizens, civil society organizations, academia;
3. Advocating for a national coordination mechanism for the SDGs, in which parliament is duly represented;
4. Advocating for a new or revised national sustainable development strategy; the strategy should be developed in an inclusive manner, with the participation of all stakeholders, and should integrate a gender perspective;
5. Revising the legislation in line with the national sustainable development strategy; the legislation should support the implementation of the SDGs, while reflecting the inter-linkages among the different Goals;
6. Holding Government to account for the implementation of the national sustainable development strategy;
7. Allocating adequate budgetary resources to implement the SDGs, including through new approaches to fiscal and tax policies, and through incentives for sustainable production and consumption patterns, for private investments in key sectors of the economy, for the development of public-private partnerships a.s.o.;
8. Developing the country’s statistical capacity to ensure evidence based decision-making, progress monitoring, and evaluation with respect to the SDGs; parliamentary support should be directed towards developing strong national capacities for data collection and disaggregation, including by gender, age, minority group and health status;
9. Monitoring progress on the SDGs, including by engaging with citizens in order to assess the actual impact of public policies on their lives;
10. Bringing the SDGs-related processes to the attention of the public and the media;
11. Following closely the processes related to the national review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to be conducted by the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development;
12. Engaging in inter-parliamentary exchanges of experience and best practices on the SDGs; the outcome of the first regional IPU Seminar on the SDGs, organized last year in Bucharest, and the decision of the IPU to provide a follow-up, stands proof of the importance of such exchanges.
Dear colleagues,
I would also like to point out that when discussing about parliamentary support for the SDGs, we should not forget the international dimension. Parliaments have an important role in ensuring that the international commitments on the SDGs are put into practice, by inter alia:
1. Seeing to it that development cooperation policies and programs support the implementation of the SDGs;
2. Providing an enabling environment for private-sector investments, including through public-private partnerships;
3. Promoting a SDGs-oriented reform of the global financial, monetary and trade regime.
In Romania, for instance, we are in the process of updating the national law on international development cooperation, adopted in 2006. As parliamentarians, we attach particular attention to the modalities of integrating the SDGs in the revised law. We also want to make sure that the Parliament will participate, alongside all relevant public institutions, civil society organizations, academics and the business community, in the Consultative Committee on development cooperation, a multi-stakeholder body whose role is to establish the geographic and thematic priorities and to provide a unitary strategic planning for Romania’s development cooperation policy.
Mr. Chairman,
With your permission, I will conclude my presentation with a few remarks on the modalities of integrating the SDGs in the work of the IPU.
We can all agree that our organization has to mainstream the SDGs in its work, in order to maximize synergies between its various activities and be as efficient as possible in promoting parliamentary support for the Goals. The SDGs need to be integrated in the future 2017-2021 IPU Strategy in a more coherent way than just by signing a document. I am glad that the President of the IPU mentioned yesterday, while presenting his activity report during the Governing Council, that a draft self-assessment toolkit for the sustainable development is being drafted, thus enabling member parliaments and the Union to have a meaningful contribution in advancing the Development Agenda, both nationally and internationally.
What would be the role of the IPU? In my opinion, the Union should focus on assisting parliaments in their efforts to mainstream the SDGs into their daily work and functioning, and on providing guidance to parliaments and their members in the conduct of their SDG related activities, in all their aspects: legislative, oversight and budgetary processes, and the interaction with the citizens and the civil society.
At the same time – and this has been one of the main recommendations of the Bucharest Seminar on the SDGs - the IPU should envisage the setting up a global parliamentary mechanism to track, monitor and evaluate progress on the Goals.
In addition, I believe that the IPU should explore modalities of providing a parliamentary input for the global review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – to be conducted by the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development - with a particular focus on:
a. awareness raising among parliaments on the need to follow closely the HLPF national review processes and their outcomes; and
b. building a parliamentary perspective to the HLPF thematic reviews.
The IPU Committee on UN Affairs is best placed to make concrete proposals in this respect.
Besides assisting member parliaments to advance nationally and internationally the entire set of SDGs, IPU might consider focusing its action on certain Goals, to be duly reflected in the Union’s 2017-2021 Strategy and the IPU-UN partnership.
The IPU member parliaments and governing bodies will decide which would be these Goals.
In my opinion, we should take into consideration first and foremost the Goals promoted by the IPU throughout the entire consultation process on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, namely: SDG 16 - Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, SDG 5 - Achieve gender equality, empower all women and girls, and SDG 10 - Reduce inequality within and among countries. SDGs 16 and 5 should be addressed both as Goals per se, and as a means to advance all SDGs.
Another possible priority Goal in respect of which the IPU has a specific comparative advantage or expertise is SDG 3 – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. I strongly believe that the IPU should take full advantage of the Parliamentary Action Plan on Climate Change, which is a powerful instrument in mobilizing the world parliamentary community in efforts against climate change.
Only together we will be able to change the way sustainable development and the SDGs are comprehended by the people, and so, we, the parliamentarians, must become pioneers in this area, by correctly understanding the SDGs and by creating the tools in order for them to be implemented. It is in our power that we embark on this journey together that will lead to a better life not only for us, but for the future generations as well.
Thank you!