Parliaments and SDGs

With only a few years left to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), mobilizing parliaments around the global development agenda is becoming increasingly urgent. Parliament’s legislative, oversight and budget responsibilities make it a key player in, for example, reducing social and economic inequalities, improving the health of the people it represents and taking action to save the planet from the climate emergency. Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) provides various forms of suppport to Parliamnets. Through regional seminars, workshops and meetings on the SDGs, IPU helps MPs exchange with peers, acquire up-to-date information and take action to advance the development agenda at home and internationally.

The self-assessment SDG toolkit, produced with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and translated into a dozen languages, is also proving very successful. The toolkit helps parliamentarians identify good practices, opportunities and lessons learned on how to institutionalize and mainstream the SDGs into the legislative process.

IPU Members also have a dedicated Committee on Sustainable Development, Finance and Trade that meets at every Assembly.

UNDP provides support to Partliaments in stengthening oversight and budget responsibilities, through INFF approach.