A new IPU report analysing three decades of women in national parliaments reveals that the percentage of seats held by women has risen from 11.3% in 1995 to 27.2% in 2025. The IPU report Women in parliament 1995-2025 commemorates 30 years since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the landmark UN framework which set out […]
A BGIPU cross party delegation visit to Indonesia took place during the February recess between 15 and 21 February with representatives from both Houses of Parliament. As delegation leader I was joined by John Slinger MP, Chris Webb MP, Graham Stuart MP, Baroness Northover, Lord Rennard and Joe Perry from the BGIPU secretariat. The key […]
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is pleased to announce the Global Conference of Women Parliamentarians From Mexico to the World: Let’s mobilize for gender parity! which will be held in Mexico City from 13 to 16 March 2025. The Conference is being jointly organized by the IPU and the Senate of Mexico. The Conference aims to identify successful […]
Parliament can strengthen its capacity to design forward-looking national strategies and foster foresight-based governance by collaborating with external experts to leverage collective intelligence. This approach allows parliament to overcome its internal resource limitations and anticipate future challenges by integrating external knowledge and expertise to create innovative solutions. For this reason, many parliaments actively engage with […]
The United Nations Development Programme defines Parliamentary Committees for the Future, which exist under various names, as “parliamentary bodies responsible for issues related to anticipating and prospecting the future in the context of parliamentary activity”. The first such committee was established by the Parliament of Finland in 1993, pioneering a parliamentary approach to addressing long-term national strategies […]
Scaling up action for the Sustainable Development Goals: Finance, Institutions, and Politics, will be the theme of the 2025 Parliamentary Hearing, a joint initiative of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). IPU President Tulia Ackson and UNGA President Philemon Yang will host some 300 participants, including parliamentarians, Speakers of Parliament, […]
The IPU has published a new toolkit to encourage parliaments and policymakers worldwide to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their functions and legislative efforts in a comprehensive manner. The toolkit, SDG-informed legislative scrutiny, helps parliaments to translate the SDGs into national laws, to hold governments accountable for the implementation of the goals and to align budgets with […]
End-of-year message from the IPU leadership In a year marked by the highest number of countries in conflict since World War II, the IPU theme of the year – peace and security – resonated strongly, aligning with the founding values of the IPU, which was born out of the peace movement in 1889. Despite immense […]
In the lead-up to Human Rights Day, the IPU continue to express grave concerns over the ever growing number of human rights violations against parliamentarians worldwide. The number of cases brought before the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians has more than tripled in the last decade, from 311 in 2014 to 956 […]
The IPU has published two new resources to help parliaments unlock the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their efficiency, effectiveness and productivity while mitigating the risks of this rapidly evolving technology. The Guidelines for AI in parliament offer a comprehensive framework for parliaments to understand and implement AI responsibly and effectively. They provide practical guidance on […]
