Moroccan speaker calls for enhanced dialog between UN, Parliamentary Union

Speaker of the house of representatives (lower house of the Moroccan parliament), Abdelouhaed Radi, on Wednesday called for the consolidation of dialog and cooperation between the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary union (IPU) to serve the interests of humankind and take up the challenges of the 21st century.

Radi launched the call in an address to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Conference of Presiding Officers, which is being held at the United Nations headquarters in the presence of over 150 speakers of national parliaments.

The IPU Conference is taking place on the eve of the General Assembly's Millennium Summit, which is expected to draw over 150 heads of State and Government to the UN next week.

Radi said the UN and the IPU which muster the same states, share the same ideals and principles, seek the same goals and adopt the same strategies to fulfil these goals should join efforts to fight plagues such as wars, famine, diseases and ignorance and promote trust, cooperation, prosperity, solidarity and development.

The two institutions, he said, should establish new ties and adopt new cooperation modes to give to the UN parliamentary dimension. After he surveyed the evolutions scored since the UN was incepted in the forties, Radi underlined the role of parliaments as warrant of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of the law and as defender of world peace and understanding among peoples.

The IPU he said can no longer be considered as a mere ngo, it is determined to play an active role in the new world order. The speakers of the parliaments of the world will expound at the General Assembly's Millennium Summit their standpoint on multilateral international relations, the parliamentary dimension of these relations and the IPU contribution in this context, Radi said.

He also underlined that the political class throughout the world, heads of state, governments, parliaments, political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organizations are all concerned by the same problems: peace, security, cooperation, democracy, development, education, health, struggle against poverty, environment protection…

In his address before the conference, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said legislators are key to overcoming grass roots mistrust of global institutions. In today's globalized world, parliamentarians have a central role to play in bringing global institutions like the United Nations closer to the people they serve, he said.

"From the Internet to the genetic code to e-business, a new world has brought new challenges that cannot be addressed merely at the national level," he said pointing out that recent incidents in Seattle and elsewhere demonstrated the dangers of alienation and suspicion between local people and international organizations.

"Together, we at the United Nations and you, the parliamentarians, can do much to break down this wall of suspicion, by explaining the global changes to our peoples and, above all, by ensuring that those changes redound to their benefit," the Secretary-General said.