Luanda - The special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) to the African Union, Parfait Onanga Anyanga, praised this Wednesday, in Luanda, President João Lourenço's commitment to pacification on the continent, especially in the Great Lakes region.
Speaking to the press, at the end of the meeting with the National Assembly Speaker, Carolina Cerqueira, the diplomat highlighted that the United Nations supports the efforts of the Angolan Head of State to consolidate peace in the region and to make institutions stronger.
He noted that the designation of President João Lourenço with the title of “Champion for Reconciliation and Peace in Africa”, by the African Union (AU), was deserved.
The UN diplomat, who congratulated Angola on hosting the 147th General Assembly of the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU), noted that the event's motto on peace, justice and institutions demonstrates the IPU's involvement in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the world level.
According to the source, these assumptions are aligned with the call by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, to continue building and consolidating peace and achieving the SDGs in the world.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved in 2015, is an action plan focused on defending people and the planet, which incorporates a total of 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Essentially, the plan aims to achieve prosperity respectful of the planet and its inhabitants, which is why it is divided into 169 goals to be achieved by 2030, with a view to providing a global response to climate change and other phenomena.
Angola and São Tomé discuss parliamentary cooperation
Also this Wednesday, the National Assembly Speaker, Carolina Cerqueira, discussed, with her counterpart from São Tomé and Príncipe, Celmira Sacramento, issues linked to Inter-Parliamentary cooperation.
Celmira Sacramento announced that a friendship group had been created in the São Tomé Parliament for Angola, with her Angolan counterpart, Carolina Cerqueira, expressing her intention to create an identical group in the Angolan Parliament.
She said she also discussed with her interlocutor the need for Portuguese to become an IPU's working language.
"We paid a quota to the IPU and other amounts for the translation, it was supposed that the quota paid to the IPU would also be used for the translation", she stressed.
Likewise, Carolina Cerqueira held a courtesy meeting with the President of the Parliament of South Africa, Nosiviwe Mapisa Nqakula, on the sidelines of the IPU's 147th General Assembly, which is taking place in the Angolan capital.
The president of the South African Parliament congratulated, on the occasion, the Angolan people for achieving and consolidating peace, after a long period of armed conflict that claimed many lives.
"Today Angola is also a country that mediates every effort to consolidate peace at the level of the region and the continent", she asserted.
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