Advisory Council Speaker presides over 140th IPU General Assembly

HE the Speaker of the Shura Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud yesterday chaired the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Doha. The assembly is discussing parliaments as platforms to enhance education for peace, security and the rule of law.The session was attended IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron, IPU Secretary-General Martin Chungong, parliament speakers and heads of participating delegations.Al-Mahmoud expressed his thanks and appreciation for the high confidence shown by the IPU Governing Council in him after they unanimously elected him as president of the 140th Assembly of the IPU, stressing the importance of cooperation to ensure the success of these important meetings.He pointed out that the choice of this year’s subject, parliaments as platforms to enhance education for peace, security and the rule of law, for discussion comes at a time of increasing calls for paying special interest to the quality of education.He stressed the decisive and effective role of the IPU in disseminating science and sound knowledge and correcting corrupt concepts that threaten the principles of peace, security and the rule of law at a time when wars and extremist ideas prevail, by calling for racial, sectarian supremacy as well as genocide and exclusion of others.He pointed out that addressing this vital issue represents the basis and root of the current challenges facing the world.Al-Mahmoud stressed that just focusing on expanding the provision of education is no longer sufficient, if it can’t be linked to values of love and tolerance.He highlighted that parliamentarians have a role to play in that regard, by promoting education that celebrates diversity, whether cultural, religious, or ideological.He pointed out that the State of Qatar has focused on education, thanks to unlimited support from the country’s leadership in terms of curriculum development, the use of new technologies in the development of teachers and students.This is a boost towards achieving the goals of the fourth objective of the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda and Qatar National Vision 2030.It also put Qatar in an advanced position in the field of education, quality of mathematics and science, and the use of Internet technology in schools according to the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (WEC). Al-Mahmoud discussed the speech given on Saturday by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, in which he discussed the education initiatives made by the State of Qatar not just on a national and regional level, but around the world in co-operation with the designated United Nations agencies.Al-Mahmoud expressed the hope that upcoming meetings can help lay out a plan that all member parliaments can then help implement and discuss its progress in upcoming meetings.He also hoped that this year’s assembly can succeed in helping people of the world have a more prosperous future and the help the world enjoy peace and security.Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the 73rd Ordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces hailed the work of the IPU General Assembly and the presence of hundreds of parliamentarians from around the world at an international forum that underlines the importance of concerted efforts to achieve peace and security through education.In a televised message to the plenary session, Garces said that the issues dealt with at the current session of the General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union are of great importance and require cooperation at all levels to translate the promises into reality through the work of parliamentarians who have the responsibility to communicate the voice of peoples to governments.In this context, she stressed the importance of working at all levels, whether local, national or regional or international, where these meetings move local and regional efforts to international efforts, bringing together all stakeholders to come up with clear visions about the future, especially on the theme of this session which is promoting education for peace and security and the rule of law.Garces noted the importance of multilateral action and said that, after half a century and several global wars, the founding fathers of the UN and the IPU had understood that multilateralism was the only way to meet the challenges that were becoming more and more certain day by day, as climate change requires multilateral action.She warned that collective action or multilateralism are currently being subjected to fierce attacks, with countries that want to undermine internationally-recognised borders and some who have lost faith in the ability of such organisations to promote and improve human life.Garces said that in order to face such a threat, the logic of force-based policies must be overcome, parliaments must respond to these challenges and real partnerships should exist to benefit the people.She reaffirmed the role of parliamentarians in promoting multilateralism and opposing the idea that such pluralism threatens national sovereignty while it actually strengthens it.She added that parliaments can co-operate on issues common to their peoples and can strengthen UN’s work and other international institutions in order for it to become more transparent.She highlighted the parliamentarians ability to positively influence their governments to ensure that international decisions that contribute to development and others are implemented through legislation adoption or the allocating resources that lead to achieving sustainable development goals.IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron touched on the importance of choosing education as a main topic for the general assembly and the parliamentarians’ role in promoting it for peace, security and sovereignty.She said that parliament members play a major role in addressing the issue of education in a rapidly changing world with influences around the world that create many challenges, the most important of which is to make education inclusive and opportunity-driven.She reaffirmed parliamentarians’ role in the interest of peoples’ access to education regardless of age, gender and race all by making education for all, boys and girls, men and women, the poor and the rich, and for developing and developed countries alike.Barron also highlighted the importance of instilling the culture of gender equality in new generations by teaching these values in schools and through practice because it is difficult to change mindsets when children become adults.She also touched on national values through education which should not lead to nationalistic tendencies which is hostile to the other or to extremism, as everyone in their countries are citizens and all peoples are citizens of this world.She added that anti-Semitism must be rejected by teaching equality among human beings.She added that education is an important way to solve the problems and challenges of the world and to promote and achieve sustainability through the use of advanced models of education in several countries.