Category: Berita CPA

Dear CPA Branch Secretaries and CPA Regional Secretaries,

Please find attached an invitation for CPA Members to a high-level roundtable for Parliamentarians on education financing on Thursday 3^rd June 2021 on behalf of the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Stephen Twigg and the Executive Director of the International Parliamentary Network for Education, Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly.

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) is inviting its membership to attend this high-level roundtable for Parliamentarians on education financing with the International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd). The CPA is also working with IPNEd to provide a briefing document for Commonwealth Parliamentarians on this topic.

Full details of the event can be found on the letter attached and via https://www.cpahq.org/events/roundtable-education-financing/.

Registration for this event is at: https://bit.ly/3sAqucz

Please note that this is not a CPA organised event. Registrations will be managed by IPNEd and all enquiries about the event should be sent to info@ipned.org.  

Event Details

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) is inviting its membership to attend this high-level roundtable for Parliamentarians on education financing with the International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd). The CPA is also working with IPNEd to provide a briefing document for Commonwealth Parliamentarians on this topic.

Date: Thursday 3rd June 2021

Time: 10.00 EDT | 15.00 BST | 17.00 EAT | 19.00 PKT | 23.00 JST

Location: Online (Zoom)

Host organisation: International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd)

Speakers

• Hon. Julia Gillard, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education and former Prime Minister of Australia
• Rt Hon. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Hon. Dr David Sengeh, Minister of Education, Sierra Leone
• Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Chair, ActionAid International
• Shradha Koirala, GPE Youth Leader and Senior Program Coordinator of the National Campaign for Education Nepal

Registration

This event is for Parliamentarians and key stakeholders. To attend the event, you must pre-register via Zoom. Once your registration has been confirmed, you will receive the Zoom link to participate in the event. To register, please use the link below, rather than the ‘register your interest’ form at the bottom of the page.

Register on Zoom

CPA NEWS (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 6 MAY 2021)

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association launches new website for the benefit of its membership of 180 Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures  

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has launched its new modern and accessible website today. The newly launched site at www.cpahq.org includes a wide range of resources, information and online learning opportunities for Commonwealth Parliamentarians, parliamentary staff and the wider public.

The new CPA website includes information and links to the following areas of our work:

• Information about each of the 180 Commonwealth Parliaments that make up the membership of the CPA at national, subnational and territorial level.
• A new online learning portal for Members of Parliament, Clerks and parliamentary staff to access online training and professional development through the new CPA Parliamentary Academy.
• Learn more about how we help build better Parliaments through our institutional parliamentary strengthening work and how we can help your Parliament.
• Links to the three CPA networks – the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP), the CPA Small Branches and the Commonwealth Parliamentarian with Disabilities (CPwD).
• Information about our forthcoming seminars, conferences, events and activities with an online registration portal.
• Access to the online editions of The Parliamentarian, the Journal of Commonwealth Parliaments providing articles and news on Commonwealth and international affairs.
• Links to the newly launched CPA Podcast Series and blog articles.
• A CPA library featuring toolkits, booklets, guides and resources on many different aspects of parliamentary development and research produced by the CPA and its partners.
• Information about our youth engagement work with resources on the CPA and the Commonwealth for schools.
• Learn more about how the CPA is governed and meet the Members of the CPA International Executive Committee.

The CPA, now in its 110^th year, exists to develop, promote and support Parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to identify benchmarks of good governance and to implement the enduring values of the Commonwealth. The Association works across an international community of 180 Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures working together to deepen the Commonwealth’s commitment to the highest standards of democratic governance.

The CPA Headquarters Secretariat has worked with external developers, CSI Media and Fabric IT to develop the designs and back office elements of the new site and to launch the new website.

-ENDS-

CPA NEWS (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 5 MAY 2021)

Parliamentarians and lawyers from across the Commonwealth discussed their respective roles in upholding constitutional democracy and holding governments to account at a recent Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) webinar. Co-hosted by the CPA and the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association (CLA) on 27 April 2021, the webinar focussed on the separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. Panellists reflected on the centrality of firm boundaries between the three branches of government to the health of constitutional democracies.

To watch the webinar in full please click here or visit the CPA’s YouTube channel.

Judge Zak Yacoob, a former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, explained that, whilst in principle the Executive administers laws, the Legislature passes laws, and the Judiciary interprets laws, the reality is more complex, requiring careful, disciplined monitoring. He said: “The separation of powers is not a static concept. It is dynamic: it changes from time to time, it changes in context and it changes as time goes on.”

The President of the Senate of Antigua and Barbuda, Hon. Alincia Williams-Grant, who is also the Managing Director of a civil law practice, spoke about the difficulties of ensuring clear separation between the Executive and the Legislature in small Parliaments such as Antigua and Barbuda. After the 2014 election, for example, 14 of the 17 Members of the House of Representatives were also appointed to government positions as Cabinet Ministers, creating a significant overlap between the Legislature and the Executive. She said: “The strict application of the separation of powers is a great challenge, in a practical sense, for the functioning of all constitutional democracies.”

Oluseun Abimbola, SAN., Chairman of the Section on Legal Practice and a previous Attorney-General of Oyo State, Nigeria, referenced the Commonwealth Latimer House Principles, a set of guidelines that provide an effective framework for the separation of powers in Commonwealth jurisdictions. The CPA and CLA both played a central role in the development of the Principles, which were first endorsed by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in 2003. He noted that whilst the constitutions of Commonwealth countries and territories may have incorporated the Principles, it was the responsibility of lawyers to protect them by actively challenging constitutional breaches. He warned that: “the politics of power creeps into the governance systems to such an extent that it is not uncommon to have elected representatives sacrificing their own independence on the altar of politics.”

The webinar, which was livestreamed on the CPA YouTube channel and is available online, was co-chaired by Brian Speers, President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and Emily Davies, Head of Secretary-General’s Private Office at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

To watch the webinar in full please click here or visit the CPA’s YouTube channel.

-ENDS-

Register to join this webinar: Twelve years’ education for every Commonwealth child. Finding the money.

What is the role of the Commonwealth in supporting education funding post-COVID? 

During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1.6 billion learners were out of school and school doors were shuttered for 168 million children for an entire year. Amidst this, it is education budgets that will feel the greatest impact.

Two-thirds of low- and lower-middle-income countries have cut their public education budgets since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is now more critical than ever to advocate for resilient and gender-transformative education financing – the Commonwealth should be a leading platform to support education financing.

Join a webinar on Thursday 29th April 2021 (time 12pm UTC+1) to hear experts in the sector discuss these issues ahead of CHOGM 2021.
Please click here to register.

The webinar will be chaired by the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Stephen Twigg and panellists include:
• Mehnaz Akber Aziz, Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and Chair of the SDG Committee on Child Rights
• Ruth Kagia, Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the President of Kenya
• Wongani Grace Taulo, Senior Adviser, UNICEF
• Pauline Rose, Professor of International Education, University of Cambridge

This webinar is being organised by a joint partnership including the Council for Education in the Commonwealth (CEC); Commonwealth Consortium for Education (CCfE); International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd); and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar please email hq.sec@cpahq.org.

According to the World Health Organisation, roughly 15% of the world’s population has a disability, visible or otherwise, among whom up to 4% have significant difficulties in functioning. This figure is likely to rise with an aging global population and improved diagnostics becoming ever better placed to measure disability. Despite forming a significant percentage of the global community, persons with disabilities continue to be significantly underrepresented in public office and continue to face obstacles to being elected. Equally disturbing the UN Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights has found that persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities continue to be deprived of their right to vote. This is a clear contravention of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as a number of other international, regional and national human rights instruments.

Through the Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities (CPwD) network, the CPA has committed to not only recognising the vital contributions of persons with disabilities in parliaments across the Commonwealth, but also increasing and building off these contributions. This session will look to highlight the importance of drafting disability-sensitive legislation, improving the accessibility of our legislative institutions in both a physical manner and otherwise, and maintaining an informed and intelligent culture within the walls of Parliament. The webinar will also provide an opportunity to highlight the work undertaken to date by the CPwD network and the important work still to come.
Time

Mar 4, 2021 02:00 PM in London

Speakers

Professor Charles Garraway, CBE – Fellow, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex
Ms Kelisiana Thynne – Legal Adviser, International Committee of the Red Cross
Senator Marilou McPhedran – Senate of Canada
Senator Rubina Khalid – Senate of Pakistan

While the Executive is, generally speaking, primarily responsible for matters relating to International Humanitarian Law (IHL), IHL is nonetheless relevant to Legislatures and to Parliamentarians. Although the roles of the Executive and Parliament differ across jurisdictions, Parliamentarians at all levels can perform a number of important roles that can contribute to strengthening IHL. Notably, Parliaments and Parliamentarians can use parliamentary procedures to encourage their state to become a party to IHL treaties and then introduce, support and review legislation and related regulations and instruments, to ensure that national laws enable the state to meet their obligations under IHL.

It was with the above in mind that the CPA worked together with the British Red Cross (BRC), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the University of New South Wales to develop a resource for Commonwealth Parliamentarians – ‘International Humanitarian Law: A Handbook for Commonwealth Parliamentarians’. The main aim behind the handbook was to take a complex area of international law – the laws that apply during armed conflicts or international humanitarian law – and to simplify it into an accessible format that parliamentarians and their assistants, many of whom are non-lawyers, could understand and use as an initial reference point. It is proposed that this session will follow a similar approach in providing an open and engaging discussion on the importance and applicability of IHL to the role of parliamentarians, through the involvement of international experts and parliamentarians themselves.

Time
Feb 25, 2021 02:00 PM in London

REGISTER NOW!       
23 February – 8 March 2021

In advance of the formal Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) which is due to be held between 21-27 August 2021 in Halifax, Canada, the CPA Headquarters Secretariat will be delivering a set of virtual workshops for Commonwealth Parliamentarians and parliamentary staff.      

Each workshop will bring together leading experts from private, public, academic, political and international backgrounds.       

The virtual workshops taking place include:

• Tuesday 23 February 2021 – National Action Towards Climate Change: Role of Parliaments and Parliamentarians of the Commonwealth – click here to register
  • This workshop will address the central role parliament plays in shaping national climate policy and filling the important gaps between the global, national and local levels. It will explore how they can support national legislative responses to climate change, including the Paris Agreement ratification process; improve transparency and accountability of national actions in line with Paris Agreement commitments, and; strengthen the capacity of fellow parliamentarians around climate change challenges in order to improve their legislative oversight functions.
• Thursday 25 February 2021 – Promote and Respect for International Humanitarian Law – Placing Humanity First – click here to register
  • While the Executive is, generally speaking, primarily responsible for matters relating to International Humanitarian Law (IHL), IHL is nonetheless relevant to Legislatures and to Parliamentarians. Although the roles of the Executive and Parliament differ across jurisdictions, Parliamentarians at all levels can perform a number of important roles that can contribute to strengthening IHL. This workshop will provide an open and engaging discussion on the importance and applicability of IHL to the role of parliamentarians, through the involvement of international experts and parliamentarians themselves.
• Tuesday 2 March 2021 – Social Media – A Curse or a Blessing – click here to register
  • Social media marketing and the exposure that these platforms provide has undoubtedly had a great impact on the larger global economy, particularly in mitigating the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The movement of surveillance capitalism has recently been the talk of mainstream media and political spaces for many reasons and this workshop will explore how the use of personal data in attracting consumers in these spaces is used as a means of maximising potential by businesses and suppliers. This workshop will look at how the role of social media companies and parliamentarians meet by exploring the powers and influence that parliamentary representatives and social media companies alike possess in regards to regulation, specifically to privacy laws.
• Thursday 4 March 2021 – Leading the Way: How the Commonwealth can Empower Persons with Disabilities? – click here to register
  • Through the Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities (CPwD) network, the CPA has committed to not only recognising the vital contributions of persons with disabilities in parliaments across the Commonwealth, but also increasing and building off these contributions. This workshop will look to highlight the importance of drafting disability-sensitive legislation, improving the accessibility of our legislative institutions in both a physical manner and otherwise, and maintaining an informed and intelligent culture within the walls of Parliament. The webinar will also provide an opportunity to highlight the work undertaken to date by the CPwD network and the important work still to come.
• Monday 8 March 2021 – Youthquakes and Rising Youth Activism in the Commonwealth– click here to register
  • In response to the COVID-19 crisis, political activism of young citizens around the Commonwealth has been emboldened. In contending with physical distancing rules, young people and youth-led movements have embraced digital technologies to campaign and raise awareness. From climate change activism to advocating for racial justice, youth activists are continuing to fight inequalities online. This workshop will explore the actions of young political activists and organisations, as well as the role of parliaments in engaging with these stakeholders to improve how they legislate on issues affecting their growing young populations.

If you are interested in attending any or all of these virtual CPC workshops, please register at the links above. You can also contact us at hq.sec@cpahq.org. 

Further information on the main 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference taking place later in 2021 will be issued direct to CPA Branches.  

Follow #65CPC for updates on social media.