IPU secretary general calls on foreign minister

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)’s Secretary General Martin Chungong has called on the foreign minister at his office in Parliament on Saturday.

He briefed Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali about some of the recent initiatives of IPU, including the Cooperation Agreement with the UN.
 
Those initiatives are meant to promote and showcase Parliament’s role in further addressing certain specific development challenges.
 
Ali appreciated IPU’s current focus on enhancing the Parliaments’ role in designing and implementing the post-2015 Development Agenda, including SDGs.
 
He said Bangladesh had made it “a foreign policy priority” to facilitate the interaction of its MPs with their counterparts across the world.
 
Bangladesh’s MP Saber Hossain Chowdhury is the President of the IPU Assembly.
 
The IPU Secretary General sought Bangladesh’s support for its initiative during the adoption of the post-2015 Development Agenda at the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York in Sep.
 
The foreign minister assured him of all possible support from Bangladesh in this regard.
 
He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had been leading from the front in Bangladesh’s sustained efforts towards women’s empowerment.
 
He stressed the need to addressing some of the key outstanding challenges related to nutrition, child marriage, unskilled birth attendance and gender disparity in tertiary education through IPU’s meaningful cooperation.