Through its programme of activities, the BGIPU seeks to engage Parliamentarians in key global issues and works to expand awareness and understanding of foreign relations and the contribution to be made by the UK Parliament to consolidate parliamentary democracy worldwide.
Here you can read the reports of our activities, including our Outward Delegations, IPU conferences and events and inward visits to Westminster.
You can search for specific reports by using keywords, themes, categories or date using the fields on the right.
From 7-11 May 2018, a parliamentary delegation from Liberia visited the UK for a five-day visit. This visit was key in re-establishing ties between the Liberian Parliament and the UK Parliament, especially given that Liberia – although not currently a Member of the IPU – was one of the original founding member parliaments of the organisation in 1889. This visit was a notable success with the delegation expressing a keen desire to rejoin the IPU.
The 12th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament, organized jointly by the IPU and the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia, will bring together the most senior women parliamentary leaders to address gender issues in parliaments, and explore avenues for more inclusive political institutions where every voice counts. The Summit will be held on 25-26 April in Cochabamba, Bolivia, one of the few countries to have achieved gender parity in Parliament and enacted specific legislation to combat violence against women in politics.
Female parliamentarians worldwide call for immediate reforms to stop sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliaments. This includes urging all parliaments to set concrete targets and deadlines to achieve equal representation of women and men. Taking part in the 12th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament on 25-26 April, women MPs urged the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to lead global reform actions to end all forms of harassment in parliament.
Parliamentarians from over 137 countries will seek to identify and agree upon parliamentary inputs to the UN-led reforms on the rights and protection of migrants and refugees. Meeting at the 138th IPU Assembly in Geneva more than 740 MPs, including 65 Speakers of Parliament and 216 women parliamentarians, will look in detail at their contribution to ensuring domestic enforcement of the two related Global Compacts expected to be adopted by the UN community later this year.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) expressed serious concerns about the scale and type of alleged human rights violations of parliamentarians in Cambodia, the Maldives, Turkey and Venezuela with the effect of jeopardizing parliamentary democracy in these countries. Meeting at the IPU 138th Assembly, the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians took positions on cases of violations against 237 MPs in 8 countries.
Nearly 750 MPs worldwide condemned the discrimination and abuse of refugees and migrants at the conclusion of the 138th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Geneva. The Assembly Declaration emphasized the critical role of parliaments in transforming the aspirations of the two Global Compacts – one on migrants and the other on refugees – into national laws.
Empowering rural women and girls was the priority theme for the 62nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which took place in New York from 12 to 23 March 2018. The IPU, in cooperation with UN Women, held a parliamentary meeting at the CSW on 13 March 2018, entitled “Parliaments deliver for rural women and girls”. MPs discussed ways to remove systemic barriers that rural women and girls face in realizing their rights and overcome the discrimination against them in law and practice.
Marking International Womens’ Day 2018, the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Senator Gabriela Cuevas Barron said the IPU proudly joins the worldwide efforts to achieve gender equality. As IPU President, she called upon male and female parliamentarians and men and women of all ages to join the fight for a better society marked by justice, equality and parity. In its work the IPU focuses on promoting gender equality and increasing the number of women parliamentarians worldwide.
BGIPU hosted a parliamentary delegation from Estonia, led by the Chair of the Estonian IPU delegation, Ms Helmen Kuett. With many delegation members having strong interest in social affairs, much of the visit focused on health policy, pension reform and disability issues, but other topics such as security cooperation, e-government and the current Brexit negotiations were also discussed. There was mutual appreciation of the excellent state of bilateral relations between both countries.
The year 2017 saw some positive developments in women’s participation in elections, according to the Women in Parliament in 2017: The year in review, released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) ahead of International Women’s Day. However, in global terms, the number of women in national parliaments has only increased by 0.1 percentage point from 2016, from 23.3% to 23.4%. A record number of women contested elections held in 2017, and more seats were won by women than in previous years: 27.1% compared with 22.3% in 2016.
