Parliaments have a critical role to play in addressing some of the issues on the global agenda and helping to translate international commitments into national realities. This makes the partnership between the IPU and the UN a natural one.
On 22 February 2018, IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron and Secretary General Martin Chungong met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to review the status of UN-IPU cooperation and examine opportunities for further engagement. The meeting took place in New York in the context of the 2018 Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations on migration.
Ms. Cuevas Barron, Mr. Chungong and Mr. Guterres underscored the critical role and responsibility of parliaments and MPs in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, implementing the Paris Climate Change Agreement, promoting democracy and human rights worldwide in the face of growing threats, as well as intensifying normative and preventive measures to combat terrorism and violent extremism. MPs can also bring a parliamentary component into major UN processes.
An example of this is the contribution made by parliamentarians to the ongoing consultations at the United Nations on the Global Compacts for migration and refugee protection, which are the focus of the 2018 Annual Hearing on Migration. Migration and refugee protection are also themes of the General Debate at the 138th IPU Assembly in March this year. The Hearing and General Debate are designed to bring a parliamentary perspective to the UN negotiations, and set the stage for active parliamentary engagement in the implementation of the Global Compacts.
