The first High-Level Panel of the 7th APNODE Annual General Meeting was held on 2 August 2022 at 2 p.m. on the theme, '8 Years to Realize the SDGs: Reimaging African Parliaments' Strategic Imperatives. The objective of this session was to provide a platform to explore insights and views of Speakers of Parliaments on what they envisage as the strategic imperatives that African Parliaments need if these key institutions are to help guide their respective countries to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The discussions also covered strategies, challenges, and solutions in working towards the SGDs.
Chaired by Michele Tarsilla, Evaluation Advisor, UNICEF Regional Office for West & Central Africa, the panel comprised of the following distinguished persons: Hon. Ahmed Akhchichine, 2nd Vice-President of the House of Councilors, Kingdom of Morocco; Sen. Lindiwe Dlamini, Senate President, Parliament of the Kingdom of Eswatini; Hon. Fabakary Tombong Jatta, Speaker of the National Assembly of The Gambia; Hon. Delfim Santiago Das Neves, Speaker of the National Assembly of São Tomé and Principe; Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis N. Mudenda, Speaker of Parliament of Zimbabwe; and, Hon. Pr. Simplice M. Sarandji, President of the National Assembly, Central African Republic.
The panelists acknowledged that the success of attaining the SDGs depend on collaboration between key stakeholders such as parliaments, civil society, governments, and development partners. Acknowledging the SDGs have been in place for less than a decade and there is massive support across the continent as evident from the actions of national and regional governments on the continent, panelists noted that while some initial successes have emerged in many countries, the results have been significantly hampered by external factors such as the outbreak of COVID-19, the economic downturn, and Ebola. Hence, the need for an inclusive development approach to all the developmental needs of Africa and to leave no one behind.
Key Imperatives Guiding and Directing the Actions of Parliament
On the issue of imperatives guiding and directing the actions of parliament, panel members highlighted the following: a) Parliament must through its legislation, budget appropriations, and oversight functions, provide leadership capacity development and oversight support to strategies that will contribute to the realization of Agenda 2030; b) Parliament should enact laws and policies that guide the identification and implementation of development policies. It is imperative to have procedures, rules, or regulations to frame decision-making and the implementation of development projects; c) Legislation regulating business operations and investments in countries on the continent must be modernized and harmonized to attract the right kinds of investment onto the continent; d) Parliament in its role of approving budgets, should integrate concrete measures in finance bills to fight against inequalities and guarantee access for all to essential social needs such as health and education; and, e) Consultation and cooperation between south-south parliaments should be improved to promote development, as well as form a common strategy to deal with issues that affect all of them.
The Senate President, of the Kingdom of Eswatini further emphasized the fact that the SDGs are people-centred, it is imperative to improve service delivery and invest in human capital, especially in a manner that empowers Africa’s youth. Similarly, Hon. Adv. Jacob F.N. Mudenda, Speaker of the Parliament of Zimbabwe, stressed on the need to take ownership of the policy frameworks to be implemented and the need for Africa to redouble its efforts to see the 2030 agenda come to fruition.
Strategies used in Countries to work towards Agenda 2030.
Panel members highlighted different strategies across their respective countries. In Zimbabwe, Parliament has formed an expanded sustainable development committee that meets monthly to ensure that actions in favour of the SDG with allocations in the national budget are implemented. Government agencies and departments are required to produce monthly, quarterly, and annual reports with sound data on the evaluation of policies and the implementation of the SDGs. This is in addition to strategies to increase awareness and action by all key stakeholders towards the SDGs. Similarly, in The Gambia, there is a parliamentary network dedicated to the SDGs that champions work at the local level, and reports on the floor of Parliament. Elsewhere in the Kingdom of Eswatini, the emphasis is on the informed capacity development of the youth and an improvement of service delivery. Sen. Dlamini, Senate President, Kingdom of Eswatini, also stressed that it is important within the framework of the 2030 Agenda to enhance service delivery to citizens to engage them in the decision-making process and engage the private sector on skills gap identification and establishing partnerships.
Challenges and Solutions
In addition to negative externalities such as COVID-19 and Ebola that hit many African nations hard, resource constraints continue to plague many in their quest to achieve the SDGs. Panel members individually and collectively expressed concern about the type of development paradigm in place in most countries as they seem not to prioritize the allocation of national budgets to sectors such as health, education, and agriculture. Within the framework of the African Union, panelists noted that African parliamentarians need to share experiences and lessons learnt on how best to guarantee effective control of government spending on vital sectors to spur progress toward achieving their SDG targets.
Panelists noted that Zimbabwe, for example, will strive to achieve its SDGs from a disadvantaged starting point given the long-standing economic sanctions against it by the likes of Britain, European Union, and the United States of America. This notwithstanding, it was noted that Zimbabwe is working closely with the private sector as a significant contributor to the implementation of the SDGs.
The Way Forward
Looking forward, panelists agreed that APNODE should proactively contribute to building the capacity of African Parliaments to enable them to effectively run and manage their oversight functions. To this end, panelists were of the opinion that APNODE could offer a platform for countries to better assess obstacles to their development and be able to create synergies across the continent on solutions to common problems. APNODE's contribution would be to facilitate African solidarity, particularly through capacity-building and networking initiatives to foster meaningful cooperation between national parliaments.
Considering the levels of institutional capacity across parliaments, Hon. Adv. Jacob F.N. Mudenda suggested that APNODE could establish best practices benchmarks for all parliaments to effectively learn from their peers. Indeed, to promote greater ownership of the principles and imperatives for the implementation of the SDGs, the panel agreed that it is important to integrate all the parliaments of the member countries of the African Union into the APNODE network. This way, members of the network would benefit from evaluation reports and other materials that inform their work towards promoting the SDGs. Again, the panel acknowledged that cooperation and partnerships can enable the different economic regions to work better toward achieving the SDGs, and that APNODE needed to play a central role in moving this forward.
Panelists agreed that Africans Parliaments must chart their development paths based on their sovereign identity and interests. Parliaments should provide strategic leadership at the highest political level and promote coordinated actions and solidarity. However, within the framework of the African Union, parliamentarians needed to share experiences to guarantee effective control of the actions of governments.
Hon. Delfim Santiago Das Neves, summed it up succinctly, noting that Africa needs strong institutions that promote transparency and good governance, representativeness in decision-making, while taking into consideration the real needs of the population.
Key take-aways
Central to the key takeaways emanating from the deliberations amongst all stakeholders at the meeting were the following:
- Legislative and oversight functions of parliament should be harnessed to support governments to work towards achieving the SDGs;
- Parliament’s role in the budget process in most countries puts them in a unique position to allocate resources to areas which will contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, and;
- APNODE should serve as a platform for parliaments to access information on progress towards achieving SDG targets as well as lessons from different countries; and,
- All AU member national parliaments must be encouraged to join APNODE.
Access the video recording of the 7th AGM HLP1 here.