Hon. Pedro Roque, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) participated at the Annual Meeting of the IMF/WB held in Bali on 8-9 October 2018. PAM is a regular participant to International Monetary Fund and World Bank events as part of its commitment to promote regional development among its Mediterranean members.
PAM President Roque highlighted the fact that the Assembly has attended regularly this Forum which represents a great opportunity to both deepen knowledge and to share experiences with these institutions’ experts and with fellow parliamentarians from other regions. “Our participation in this forum, as well as the outcome of its meetings, provide an excellent basis for PAM to fine tune and focus its strategy and action plan with regards to economic sustainable development”, Hon. Roque explained.
During the meeting and side events PAM referred to the fruitful partnership that has been established with the World Trade Organization and to the first joint event that was organized a year ago in Morocco, dedicated to investments and trade facilitation in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Owning to the success of the Rabat conference, at the request of the President of the UN General Assembly, PAM also organized a similar event last July, in Belgrade, hosted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, with a specific focus on the Western Balkans.
Participants addressed the concerns by PAM Member States in relation to the current trade war, the rise of protectionism, and other key challenges faced by multilateral trade. These have a key impact also on structural investments and promotion of sustainable development.
The recommendations of the meeting, as always, have been also transmitted to all national parliaments for further consideration in their legislative processes in support of economic growth and global security at large.
Hon Roque also referred to the meeting with the UN Special Envoy for West Africa and Sahel, Mr. Mohammad Ibn Chambas, in New York, during the General Assembly. Mr Chambas has witnessed a sharp deterioration of the general situation in the region and added that pledges for development activities have not materialized; in the best conditions, direct foreign development funds have been diverted by donors to reinforce local military capabilities.
These trends represent a clear failure of the collective commitment to peace, security and global development. PAM, is convinced that world development is too unbalanced to be sustainable. Initiatives such as the Global Compact on Migrations are good but address only one aspect of the current situation. Sectoral and regional levels of implementation of the SDGs must be analysed without complacence. In spite of the progress recorded in some regions, there is no space for it.
PAM regards institutions such as the WB and the IMF as part of the solution, and PAM proposes to co-organize, together with fellow parliamentarians from Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf, North America and China, a parliamentary debate to raise awareness and increase the level of oversight responsibility in the national and regional assemblies.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean augured that a similar cooperation platform is put in place also with the IMF, because PAM is fully aware of the fact that the knowledge and expertise of the IMF and WB represent an additional reference for our parliamentarians in exercising their universal mandate.