Speaker leads delegation at 145th IPU general assembly |18 October 2022
Seychelles delegation on inauguration day
Speaker Roger Mancienne led a delegation to the 145th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) general assembly held in Kigali, Rwanda from October 11-15, 2022.
The Seychelles delegation included Hon. Waven William, deputy chairperson of the IPU Sustainable Development Committee and the IPU desk officer of the National Assembly, Emma Didon.
Speaker Mancienne and his delegation attended the inauguration ceremony held on the October 11, where the guest of honour, President Paul Kagame, the IPU President, Duarte Pacheco, the secretary general of the IPU Martin Chungong, and the host of the Assembly, the Rt. Hon Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Donatille Mukabalisa, were in attendance. The secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, also addressed the Union in a video message.
Prior to the inauguration ceremony, the delegation attended the SADC and the Africa geo-political group meetings on Monday October 10. The purpose was to build consensus on an Africa position on the 145th IPU general assembly agenda including on the emergency item where much debate was seen.
Speaker Mancienne was among the 45 speakers of various parliaments who spoke on the main theme of debate entitled ‘Gender equality and gender sensitive parliaments as drivers for a more resilient and peaceful world’.
Hon. William was involved on the Committee on Sustainable Development and Ms Didon was engaged in meetings, such as the Youth and Women's forums.
Some of the topical issues that the general assembly and committees dealt with included climate change; human rights abuses globally; democracy, peace and security; gender parity and gender-sensitive parliaments; ongoing geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine; among others.
The general assembly was also expected to adopt a resolution on an emergency item.
Speaker Mancienne also held bilateral meetings with various dignitaries.
On the morning of Wednesday October 12, Speaker Mancienne attended the 210th Session of the Governing Council. The first agenda point addressed the election of the presiding officer of the 145th Assembly where here, the Speaker of the Chamber of Representatives of Rwanda, Hon. Mukabalisa, was unanimously elected as the President of the 145th Assembly.
Other items on the agenda included Reports of the SG and President of the IPU, the IPU’s financial situation and its 2023 budget, reports on the IPU’s specialised meetings, activities of the committees and other bodies among other pertinent issues.
In the meeting of the standing committee on Sustainable Development the same day, Hon. William made an intervention on the theme of the next resolution entitled ‘Parliamentary efforts in achieving negative carbon balances of forests.’ He called on the meeting to use the outcome of the Sendai framework midterm review to adopt more focused and targeted strategies to prevent desertification and deforestation in order to sustain a negative balance of carbon free forest.
The general debate themed ‘Gender equality and gender sensitive parliaments as drivers for a more resilient and peaceful world’ was opened by President Pacheco where he expressed his gratitude to the Rwandan parliament for its hospitality and its exemplary status as a gender sensitive parliament with over 60% of female parliamentarians.
He shared his hope that the parliamentarians present learn from one another and to adopt best practices in achieving gender parity in parliaments worldwide, not in 40 years but much earlier, wherever possible.
Keynote speeches were then given by the UN under-secretary general and UN Women executive director Sima Bahous; Wessel van den Berg from the Equimondo: Centre for Masculinities and Social Justice; the President of the Bureau of Women Parliamentarians, Hon L. Vasylenko; the United Nations envoy on Youth and the President of the Board of the Forum of Young Parliamentarians, Hon Albazar.
Following these, the debate on the theme was officially launched by President of the Assembly.
Press release from the National Assembly secretariat
