Parliaments should be innovative, productive: Angolan speaker

Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos, speaker of the National Assembly of Angola, said here on Monday that parliaments, being an expression of the will of people, should be more innovative and productive.

In his remarks at the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament taking place at the UN headquarters in New York, he also highlighted that parliaments should be more representative and closer to the citizen.

Parliaments should be innovative and productive, making the laws more accessible and understandable so that the common citizen can apply them, contributing for the improvement of the social well-being, he said.

The World Conference of Speakers of Parliament is held every five years. The current meeting will run through Sept. 2, and a draft declaration, "Placing democracy at the service of peace and sustainable development: Building the world the people want", is expected to be adopted.

Taking note of the current challenges to world peace and development, the draft read, "in spite of progress in the areas of democracy, peace and development, we continue to live in an unstable world. War and conflict, often characterized by extreme brutality, are a daily reality in many places. Millions of people, primarily women and children die, are injured and displaced or forced to flee in dramatic conditions."

It calls for greater efforts to be deployed "in solving conflicts through political dialogue and negotiations, with full respect for international law." Endit