“The fact that we parliamentary leaders from across the globe have gathered at this point in time signifies that all parliaments are being drawn into the work of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. I believe this to be critical,” said Olemic Thommessen, the President of the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament).

Mr Thommessen was one of the speakers on the opening day of the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in New York.

The conference has been convened by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in collaboration with the UN. Parliamentary speakers from 164 countries were invited. The three-day conference’s agenda concentrates on the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals. 

Mr Thommessen used his speech to point out that high-quality democratic governance that upholds the rule of law and safeguards human rights is essential for sustainable development.

“Democracy is about much more than holding elections. Appropriate institutions and systems must also be put in place to control power, and to place restrictions on the exercise of power by individuals,” Mr Thommessen said.  

“Parliaments play a critical role”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the World Conference for Parliamentary Speakers, saying that parliaments have a key role to play in ensuring that the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are reached.  

“ People will look to you to hold your governments accountable for achieving the goals, and to write the laws and invest in the programmes that will make them a reality,” said Ban Ki-moon. 

In his speech, the Secretary-General emphasized the critical roles parliaments will play now that the work to implement the new development agenda is due to begin. 

“Parliaments will have to translate the agenda’s goals from global to national arenas,” Ban Ki-moon noted.

During the opening ceremony, the president of the IPU, Saber Chowdry, said it was significant that the world’s parliamentary speakers had chosen this moment to meet in 2015, shortly before the opening of the UN General Assembly session in September, where the Sustainable Development Goals are to be agreed.

The SDGs matter to all countries

The speakers of parliament who delivered speeches expressed a variety of points of view. Nonetheless, the President of the Storting believes it was important to come together.

“The fact that almost all the world’s speakers of parliament are represented here helps put the new goals onto parliamentary agendas in a way that would not have been possible without these talks in New York,” Mr Thommessen said. “While the Millenium Goals were primarily directed at developing countries, the new Sustainable Development Goals matter to all the world’s countries.”

The conference at the United Nations’ headquarters is scheduled to go on for three days, until 2 September. It is expected to result in a declaration to be submitted to the UN Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September.