HCM City (VNA) – The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) symposium for Asia-Pacificwrapped up in Ho Chi Minh City on May 13, calling on legislatures to takestronger actions to cope with climate change, via promoting their legislativeand supervisory role and increasing regional and international cooperation.

Addressing the closing ceremony, Vice Chairwomanof Vietnam’s National Assembly Tong Thi Phong summarized the main contents ofthe event which underlines climate change as one of the biggest threats tosustainable development, especially in the Asian-Pacific region.

Participants discussed measures to promote therole of lawmakers in tackling environmental changes and implementing nationalcommitments to realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with thespirit “no one is left behind”.

They stressed the role of the IPU in boosting theintegration of SGDs into law-building programmes as well as examining anddeciding important issues relating to the field.

Phong said a self-assessment toolkit built bythe IPU and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was launched at theevent with comprehensive and specific criteria to help legislatures evaluatetheir progress and quality of implementing commitments to achieve SDGs.

She called on countries to strengthencoordination with the UN agencies to increase the capacity of legislators in acceleratingthe implementation of SDGs.

Participants also spared time elaborating theimpacts of climate change on the public health and food security.

They proposedlegislatures provide more assistance for needy people and such vulnerablegroups as women and children.

Phong suggested intensifying inspection andensuring the distribution of budget and necessary financial resources toimplement national commitments to obtain SDGs, while encouraging internationalorganizations and developed countries to support developing ones.

Secretary General of the IPU Martin Chungong urgedlegislatures to strengthen solidarity and cooperation towards SDGs.

Later, Nguyen Van Giau, Chairman of the VietnamNational Assembly’s Committee for External Relations hosted a press conferenceinforming the outcomes of the symposium. He remarked that the event was asuccess, looking to foster the law-making body’s role in pushing actions torespond to climate change to realize sustainable development goals.

The IPU symposium took place in HCM City from May 11-13 with three plenarysessions, focusing discussions on the role of legislatures in realizing SDGs andthe mobilization of financial resources for these goals. It gathered 200delegates from parliaments in 22 Asian-Pacific countries, and representativesfrom international organizations.-VNA