IPU Governing Council: Reports on recent IPU specialised meetings

Geneva, 18 October 2016

Regional Seminar on the Sustainable Development Goals for the
Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe (Bucharest, 15-16 June 2015)

Report presented by Mr. László Borbély MP

• Parliaments have a key role to play in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by holding governments accountable for the goals they have subscribed to and making sure that enabling laws are passed and budgets adopted. It is against this backdrop that the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament and the IPU jointly organized a Seminar on the SDGs for the Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe.
• The seminar took place in Bucharest on 15 and 16 June 2015. It was attended by parliamentarians and parliamentary staff from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Serbia and Romania.
• The Bucharest Seminar discussed how the SDGs and their targets may apply to Central and Eastern Europe and advance its development. Special emphasis was placed on the important role parliaments can play in ensuring effective implementation of the SDGs at the national level. The event allowed the participants to proactively engage on these issues and elaborate concrete strategies, actions and recommendations to advance parliamentary engagement with the SDGs.
• Senior officials from a number of key international organizations addressed the parliamentarians: the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe; the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme; as well as regional representatives of UNICEF, UNDP and UN Women. In addition, the seminar benefited from the presence of experts from our region who addressed the critical topics for SDG implementation, ranging from the region’s climate change challenges to gender equality and engagement with citizens. 
• The seminar recommended that each country should devise its own sustainable development strategy, identifying specific goals and the means of achieving them with input from relevant parties including women’s groups.  It also urged parliaments to promote strong inter-parliamentary cooperation, including the development of joint projects between countries.
• The parliamentarians at the event recommended IPU set up a global parliamentary mechanism to track and evaluate progress so that national and regional experiences can be fed back to the global level and encourage further progress.
• The outcome document of this important seminar is available in the room. I hope that it will inspire other regions to work with the IPU to strengthen parliamentary cooperation in the implementation of the SDGs.