-Commonwealth Group
Strong parliamentary action to air grievances and expose bad government is required to prevent or resolve serious conflicts that destabilize entire nations, representatives from eight Commonwealth Parliaments, including Guyana, say.
A release from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association said yesterday that the eight Commonwealth Parliaments are in countries recently or currently affected by violent conflicts. The group was composed of Parliamentarians from Cyprus, Pakistan, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Guyana, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka.
The Parliamentarians, who met under the auspices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the World Bank Institute, released a Concluding Statement of recommendations to help resolve global conflicts and to prevent future outbreaks of violence by applying more stringent controls on government spending, legislation and policies.
This includes government use of foreign aid and revenues from the exploitation of natural resources. The MPs met at the Joint Vienna Institute in Vienna, Austria, from 25 to 29 October 2010 to consider “Parliament, Aid Effectiveness and Conflict Prevention,” the release said.
The release said that based on the expertise they have gained from their countries’ experiences in conflict and post-conflict recovery and aided by specialists from six international organizations, the 14 Parliamentarians identified the types, causes and underlying economic and social conditions most likely to lead to conflicts.
According to the release, they recognized that Parliament must be bolstered to counteract violence by improving democratic governance, particularly its oversight functions and systems for ensuring accountability by the executive, including the budget process and public sector financial management. “The conflict spiral is a trap from which too many countries today cannot seem to escape. These Commonwealth recommendations will help all nations to end the violence that destabilizes so much of the world today,” said Dr William F. Shija, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Meanwhile, the parliamentarians also called for higher standards of natural resource management, “especially the exploitation of valuable mineral and petroleum resources, to ensure that there are fair and equitable systems for the distribution of benefits to all segments of the nation.”
