Kodela leaves for Cameroon

He will take part in Commonwealth meet

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Kodela Siva Prasada Rao has left on Saturday for Cameron to participate in the 60th Conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) to be held at Yaounde, capital of Cameroon on October 5. He is scheduled to return to Hyderabad on October 10.

According to Kodela, the conference assumes importance as it will be discussing several important issues like Unity and Diversity: The Role of Parliament. He said the quality of democratic institutions depended on their successes in balancing unity and diversity, system coordination and unit autonomy - that is, the ability to act in a coherent and purposeful way and at the same time respect and accommodate legitimate diversity and conflicts. Statecraft implied the ability to make and enforce collective decisions and sustain a political community in the face of enduring differences. The Speaker said that this was one of the aspects which would come up for discussion during the conference.

There will also be a workshop on Joining Hands for Women's Rights: The Role of Parliamentarians in Gender Empowerment. He said the conference was of the opinion that despite the fact that women constituted half of the world's population, they continued to be disproportionately underrepresented in governance and at all levels of decision making. The progress in improving their representation had been slow. The worldwide average was just a little over 21 percent according to the findings of the various experts who would be presenting the papers at the conference. He said the UNDP was currently working to strengthen Parliaments in 22 of the 53 members of Commonwealth.

According to Kodela, there will be other workshops on Good Governance for the 21st Century as transparency and accountability continued to be needs and requirements of the Commonwealth countries.