The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) collaborated with the National Assembly (NA) of Vietnam to organize a regional seminar on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the Parliaments in the Asia Pacific Region with a focus on Responding to climate change Actions of legislators to achieve the SDGs in Ho Chi Minh city in May 2017. The seminar focused on five main themes: (1) the role of parliaments in achieving the SDGs; (2) promoting gender equality and health in the context of responding to climate change; (3) challenges, opportunities and response actions of countries in the region; (4) international commitments and requirements for national legislators; and (5) mobilizing resources for the SDGs’ implementation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Dr. Toan Vu shares key lessons and challenges in responding to climate change and in building urban climate resilience.
ISET was honor to be invited as panelist participating session No. 3. on “Challenges, Opportunities and Response Action of countries in the region”. ISET’s Technical Consultant, Dr. Toan Vu, talked about the key lessons and governance-related challenges in building urban climate resilience in Asia and its implication for achieving SDGs. One of Dr. Toan Vu’s main points is that, responding to climate change is not just a technical and technological matter but constrained strongly by governance-related barriers.
Findings of this seminar highlight the importance of and the urgent need to address climate change considered as one of the biggest threats to sustainable development. It was also highly recommended that Parliaments, through their legislative, oversight, budgetary and representative roles, should take stronger and more concerted actions: to respond to climate change and to mainstream commitments to climate change responses into sustainable development plans; to ensure an effective implementation of climate change and sustainable development actions; to integrate the sustainable development goals into legislation in a holistic and synergistic manner; to ensure that priorities are identified and implemented with a meaningful participation of citizens especially vulnerable groups and marginalized populations and that no one is left behind. For more information please see the event page or this article.