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"As Parliamentarians, we have special responsibilities to pass supportive and enabling legislation, to approve budgets, to advocate with our leaders, to promote national dialogue, to mobilise the public, to report on implementation, progress and impact, to voice and address the desires and frustrations of our constituents to whom we are accountable and who need to see actions on the ground, and not words on paper", they said in a draft paper at the opening of the 4th international Parliamentarians conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The two-day conference being organized by the Forum of African and Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development and the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) commemorated the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) which first took place in Cairo in 1994.
More than 400 parliamentarians, ministers of state and government officials and partners from civil society groups from more than 115 countries are attending the conference, being hosted by the House of the Peoples’ Representatives of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
In the draft document, the parliamentarians in a 26-point commitment, expressed among other things their determination to eliminate restrictions in laws and practice that still restricted access to sexual and reproductive health as well as create a platform with civil society, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and foundations for effective joint monitoring and implementation of the ICPD program of action.
Source: Modern Ghana