Clerks of the Parliaments of Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Samoa, Nauru,

Staff from Legislatures across the 14 Pacific Island countries,

Our partner from the McGill's School of Continuing Studies,

Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

A good morning and good day to you all.

I am delighted to be here this morning to provide some opening remarks at the launch of the Webinar Series. This webinar series is important as it is aimed at creating opportunities for south-south knowledge sharing on the latest developments and reflections on key governance issues in the Pacific.

For the next five weeks, UNDP and its various partners, will be implementing 17 online learning events targeting members and staff of legislatures, representatives from political parties and political party regulatory bodies, academia, civil society organizations, electoral management bodies, as well as governments and regional organizations.

The webinar series covers a variety of contemporary issues faced by parliamentary leaders, Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff. The webinar also offers a comparative overview of political party regulation guidelines, best practices and addresses issues related to the types of electoral systems and its impact on party systems; shares good practices on the regulation of electoral campaign funding, key elements of a legal framework for an effective political party regulation and good practices regarding party funding reporting.

The first session of the webinar series, entitled ‘Parliaments in the Pandemic’, will be moderated by the Canadian McGill University, and focusses on the preparedness of parliaments for effective business continuity of parliaments in the events of unforeseeable emergency situations such as cyclones and pandemics.

The unprecedented impacts of the pandemic also extended to parliaments in the Pacific.  Yet, a number of parliaments were able to swiftly convert their pre-pandemic practices to the new and more innovative ones with support of information and communications technology. These parliaments were able to continue performing their functions critical to implementing the response measures to the emergency situations.

The webinar series is a timely opportunity, where you will exchange your knowledge gained from the experiences and learn from each other to build more resilient governance mechanisms.

Each webinar will be moderated by one or more leading practitioners at the regional or global level. The webinars are designed to be interactive, therefore, I encourage you all to discuss and ask questions.

Prior to the webinars, participants will receive a summary note, comprising an overview of the topic and a list of key questions to be addressed. Discussions and reflections from these webinars will enable UNDP to finalize various policy briefs, guides and other knowledge products on key governance issues in the region. These knowledge products will be shared with participants that attended the webinar series at a future date. They will also be publicly available online.

The webinar series aims to consolidate the efforts in the Pacific region to contribute towards the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on Goal 16 to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

The hosting of this webinar series and the finalizations of the various knowledge products has been made possible by the generous support of our donors to the following projects: The Pacific Parliamentary Effectiveness Initiative (PPEI-II), Strengthening Legislatures in Pacific Island Countries Project (SLIP), Regional Effective Governance Project and Strengthening of Public Finance Management and Governance in the Pacific Project (EU-PFM).

I would therefore like to thank our partners, the Governments of New Zealand, Japan, Australia and the European Union for their continued support to UNDP.

I hope that the webinar series deepens our collective understanding of core aspects of democratic governance in the Pacific region. I trust that you will continue to join us over the next few weeks, and I wish you a fruitful deliberation.

Thank you very much.