NDO – As the Assembly of the 132nd Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU-132) and related meetings are concluding the working days of its agenda, spokesperson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Jemini Pandya granted Nhan Dan Online an interview on the Assembly’s discussed contents and Vietnam’s hosting. The interview’s full text is as follows.Q: What is your opinion on the topic that Vietnam has suggested to the IPU-132 – “Sustainable development goals: Turning words into action”? A: I think sustainable development is the biggest issue at the moment so there’s no more important subject. Decisions are going to be made this year on new development goals to be adopted and how they will be implemented in the future. The decisions will affect how people on the planet are going to live in decades to come. It’s really the future of society and nothing is more important than that.
Q: What content of the IPU-132 are you most interested in? A: All issues are important and interesting in many different ways. Sustainable development is an umbrella theme of the Assembly, and as you know from what has been going on in the past few years in the Middle East and Africa and the prices we have to pay for terrorism. This is an issue we can no longer ignore, because if we cannot address terrorism, everything that we are trying to build in sustainable development will fail to work. Sustainable development and democracy must be accompanied with peace and security so we have to address the issue of terrorism.
The other issue which we think is not urgent, but still important is water scarcity and how we can better manage our water resources. I know that the isssue is not only in Vietnam but also in many other countries, so water governance is a key issue.
Cyber warfare is another growing issue, because it is not only linked to terrorism but also determines how we protect individual freedom. With this growing world of cyber wars, how we balance security and individual freedom is also interesting.
Q: What do you think about the organisation of this year’s IPU by Vietnam? A: It’s fantastic. It’s really impressive. We all still continue to be amazed by the care and detail of organisation, and the facilities here are fantastic. I’m very happy to be here.
Q: What do you think about Vietnam’s role in the IPU’s development in the future? Is Vietnam an active and responsible member of the IPU? A: There has been a long relationship between the IPU and Vietnam. It started when Vietnam joined the IPU and the IPU supported the Vietnam National Assembly. Vietnam is an active member of the IPU and we see it’s really a milestone in the relationship.
Q: How do you evaluate women’s participation in politics? A: For the past 20 years, there has been some progress. The percentage of women in parliaments doubled, or nearly doubled (from 11.3% in 1995 to 22.1% in 2015) but it is still small considering women make up around 50% of world population. We have another 30% to go to have equal participation and representation of women in parliaments. We need to see more countries like Vietnam commit to increasing the number and the percentage of women in parliament and in government. It’s not only the issue of women, it cannot be confined to women only — it really needs the involvement and support of men as well because equality only happens when there’s agreement for partnership. We need men’s involvement and support in the issue.
Q: What should countries do to address the risk of cyber war? A: Cyber governance is changing so fast. It needs real attention and we need to be collective in what we will do with cyber warfare. Another issue is initiatives which different organisations are working on. for example, the UN has the world economic forum. But it needs the involvement of all people, organisations, authorities and the whole society, everybody needs to work together to find a way of making cyber governance much safer and allow us freedom to express ourselves.
Q: What can you say about water governance? A: Water is the most precious resource we have on the planet and we know that there is not enough for us. It has the potential to cause conflicts. In many parts of the world, in the Middle East and Africa, the scarcity of water is a flash point for potential conflicts. We need to sort out of this kind of issue now and how we can better manage our water resources, particularly with technologies that we have. We want to avoid conflicts and keep the world peaceful, we should find concrete and peaceful solutions.
Thank you very much!
HANG TRAN
Đăng ký: VietNam News