From Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi: Assembly Speaker AT Mondal and three other MLAs – two from the ruling Congress and one from opposition parties – will be attending the G8 and G20 Global Parliamentarians’ conference on population and development at the House of Parliament in London next week.
Parliamentarians from around the world – primarily from G8 and G20 countries – will meet in London and discuss the importance of family planning and reproductive health in development. They will also discuss how these are keys to issues such as sustainable development, women’s empowerment and maternal and newborn health in the two-day conference from May 9.
The outcome of the conference will pass a powerful message to the world leaders who are planning the future framework for international development, sources in the Ministry of External Affairs said.
The conference will bring together parliamentarians from Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe who believe that development can only occur when the reproductive rights of women to plan their families are respected.
The conference aims to ensure that these rights remain at the top of the international development agenda in 2015 when the successor to the Millennium Development Goals begins. The parliamentarians will be joined by eminent speakers of note from politics, advocacy, science and medicine and other walks of life.
The participating parliamentarians will exchange their expertise and knowledge about their efforts to uphold reproductive rights around the world. And they will formulate guidelines for the world’s leaders to hear when they design the future of the international development agenda. At the conference’s conclusion the parliamentarians are likely to agree on a declaration outlining their commitment to the cause, and the activities they will undertake to protect it.
The event is organized by the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF) – a parliamentary network focusing on global health and development. The other organizer – UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health works within the two houses of the British Parliament to encourage initiatives to increase access to and improve reproductive and sexual health programmes worldwide.
Interestingly, in a welcome change, the Speaker will be accompanied by only three MLAs and no minister will be part of the delegation, Mondal told The Shillong Times on Thursday.
The number of officials accompanying the delegation will also be kept at a bare minimum, he added.