VIEWFROMTHE CPACHAIRPERSON
HOWTOACHIEVE THE SDGs View from the Chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee
Speech at South Asian Speakers’ Summit on Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The South Asian Speakers’ Summit convened in Dhaka, Bangladesh1
, and ended with the adoption
of the Dhaka Declaration on Achieving SDGs in South Asia,2
ushering in a great deal of optimism. The South Asian Speakers’ Summit was a high level event demonstrating a staunch commitment of Speakers’ to ensure their role as leaders of South Asian Parliaments in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It resonates the commitment made by the world leaders at the SDG Summit, UNGA70, UN Summit in September 2015 in New York, USA. 193 Member-States of the UN General Assembly made a pronouncement to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in their own countries, as well as at the regional and global level. It is against this backdrop that the South Asian Speakers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka met in Dhaka, Bangladesh with their delegations to discuss their roles in taking forward the global agenda of implementing the SDGs. This Summit also focused on the impact of tobacco on health and non- communicable disease. Parliaments are the premier representative institutions in democracy. Speakers are steering the work of Parliaments. It was therefore felt essential to identify the role of Parliamentarians in materializing this vision. • What is it that Parliamentarians tend to do? • What new or innovative approach can they adopt? • What is different that Parliaments want to offer? These are some of the basic questions that I posed for myself as Speaker of Bangladesh and also for my colleagues, the Speakers of South Asia. I very humbly shared some thoughts which would be relevant for this Summit and could also be discussed as we go along in defining our roles in achieving the SDGs.
First of all it is important to have a thorough understanding of what we mean by sustainable development. SDGs are a set of goals and targets constituting a framework of transformative global development pathway. It contains 17 goals with 169 targets. SDGs address the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in an integrated way. It is therefore necessary to analyse the different aspects of the concept of sustainable development including the political aspect in the South Asian context. Inequalities in global resources is a crucial factor that needs to be taken into account.
It is essential to consider the role of governments vis-a-vis parliaments, both at national and sub-national level in making the SDGs meaningful and beneficial for people and to effectuate significant positive differences in their lives in a fundamental way, which is at the core of parliamentary democracy. Parliamentarians need to think what would be the most effective mode. Will it be top down approach in terms of policy adoption and
6 | The Parliamentarian | 2016: Issue One
implementation or bottom-up perspective? Can there be any single blue print or should it be on a contextual basis? It must be borne in mind that neither governments nor Parliaments operate in a vacuum. They reflect the exigencies of their time and place, conflicting interests and power bases.3
They uphold the core values inherent
Hon. Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, MP, Chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee and Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament.
in the interdependence of economic and social systems. Even within South Asia, while we are to work with collective and shared commitment, socio-economic and political situations vary and ecological challenges differ. It is important for us to find the commonalities that exist and also find ways to work through the differences. Each nation has to work out its own policies, plans and measures and their implications for itself. They need to ascertain what their priorities are and at the same time come together to work for the common good of the people of South Asia. This is a task that Parliamentarians and government can join hands in dispensing. Parliamentarians have to be vigilant and play a proactive role in monitoring and ensuring that governments properly dispense their key strategic and managerial functions. What would be the level or degree of state intervention in regulating and correcting market failures? How best are policies being formulated to address this function is something that can be examined by Parliaments? How can we overcome the systematic barriers to achieving sustainable development? This is where I feel goal 16 of democratic governance comes into play. Further resource constraints, breeding inequalities etc. also become relevant. Parliamentarians can engage in the process of developing a range of instruments to rectify market failures by working on imposition of appropriate laws and regulations, levies and subsidies, use of economic and fiscal instruments, setting environmental benchmarks for achieving SDGs. Setting the stage is imperative. Successful implementation of laws, policies and strategies aimed at a shift to the path of sustainable development requires institutional innovation and reform, resource mobilization and priority setting. Coordination and parliaments can be a stimulus and catalyst in this arena. Let me now turn to some fundamental tenets to provide food for thought. Sustainable Development is understood as a social and political construct embracing environmental and ecological sustainability. We accept the proposition that a call for zero growth strategies and the limits to growth argument has been displaced. Instead environmental protection and continuing economic growth must be seen as mutually compatible and not mutually exclusive or conflicting. This poses a major challenge for us. While ecological sustainability is inbuilt within sustainable development, it covers a wider range of components like health, education, social welfare, as it aims to bring about social change. Parliamentarians therefore need to find innovative ways to identify the necessary changes in democratic governance to strike a balance between economic growth and ecological degradation. Can we find a solution to bridge the gap and unbridgeable divide between the two approaches of anthropocentric and bio centric of politics? Can we resolve this `political fudge’ that critics often say is
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92
