Zim to host African Parliament summit

Herald Reporter

Zimbabwe’s offer to host the next sessions of the African Parliamentary Union has been enthusiastically accepted with the 78th executive committee and 44th conference scheduled for November in the country.

The date and venue for the event will be announced in due course, said Mberengwa North legislator, Cde Tafanana Zhou, while presenting the report to the National Assembly compiled by Zimbabwe’s delegation to the 76th executive committee and the 43rd conference of the APU held in Djibouti last year.

The Zimbabwe delegation was led by deputy president of the Senate, Michael Nyambuya.

After the enthusiastic acceptance of the Zimbabwean invitation, president of the Senate, Mabel Chinomona, was elected vice president of the executive committee representing Southern Africa.

Cde Zhou said the conference’s political committee had adopted a resolution outlining the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which primarily notes the negative impacts of the pandemic as it relates to the implementation of the sustainable development goals for health systems, climate change, peace and security issues, provision of social safety nets, reduced remittances from the diaspora and food security.

The resolution called for the implementation of policies that would allow African governments to be the main drivers in a crisis such as Covid-19, and foster greater transparency and better governance to improve confidence in the rule of law.

Governments should conduct electoral processes in a consultative and inclusive manner in order to mitigate political tensions, exacerbated by the health challenges and governments should continue strengthening health systems and expanding health and social protection coverage.

APU is a continental inter-parliamentary organisation set up in Abidjan on February 13 1976.

Its goals are to promote unity of action among parliamentary institutions of all African States, and dedicate the APU as forum of National Parliaments of the African continent and as an instrument of dialogue and parliamentary co-operation in the service of peace, democracy, good governance and sustainable development.