A three-day meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CAP), Asia region including India, will be held here on March 26-28. It would the CPA's third regional meeting, and first to be hosted by Pakistan's Senate.
Pakistan will field a large delegation from its six legislatures, including Parliament, and legislative houses of Balochistan, NWFP, Punjab and Sindh. Speakers of Punjab and Sindh assemblies, and Deputy Speakers of Balochistan and NWFP assemblies will be represent their houses.
The Azad Jammu and Kashmir legislature is still left out of the Pakistan Branch of the CPA--for obvious reasons.
The number of delegates to the meeting is expected to be about 200, including foreign guests from Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. India will send a large delegation of 40 parliamentarians. Rahman Khan, President of Rajya Sabha will lead the Indian delegation comprising legislators from 16 states.
Among other distinguished guests would be Speakers of Maldives and Sri Lanka parliaments. Bangladesh will be an active participant at this CPA meeting, though the House is dormant at the moment, in wait for the general election.
CPA keeps the membership of active parliaments. For this reason Fuji's parliament was disaffiliated due to military coup.
TWO-POINT AGENDA HAS BEEN CHOSEN FOR THE MEETING BY CONSENSUS AS FOLLOWS:
1) The Role of Parliamentarians in meeting UN Millennium Goals and reduction of poverty; and
2) The Role of IT in development and communication.
As an insider put it, the meeting would share experiences and networking of best practices on this theme.
The theme is quite interesting because in theory best practices include strengthening parliamentary democracy though it is quite discernible of late that the enthusiasm for the so-called war on terror has lessened the emphasis on the demands of political rights of the people as substituted by new themes such as social and economic rights.
As Claudio Munez wrote in his recent article, in a different context, in The London Economist, 'What use is a vote if you are starving? Are not access to jobs, housing, health care and food basic rights, too?'
Be that as it may, the Senate certainly deserves kudos for organising two international moots in the space of a month. The last one was the 13th General Assembly of APPCED, that concluded three weeks ago on March 3.