The Shura Council State of Qatar

HE Speaker of the Advisory Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud affirmed that Qatar believes that peace and sustainable development are interdependent and inseparable, which requires from United Nations agencies and regional and international organizations, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), to work together to address them together.

In his speech before the 139th IPU General Assembly being held in Geneva under the title "Parliamentary Leadership in Promoting Peace and Development in an Era of Innovation and Technological Change", His Excellency said that conflicts, wars, displacement and migrations to which human population is exposed to are a result of the failure to achieve economic development and the absence of stability and justice. From this perspective, Qatar has always been calling for addressing the root causes of global problems and not only their manifestations, he stressed.

HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council added that despite the fact that efforts to achieve sustainable development have led to a rapid modernization of science and technology and the progress of human society, they have also had negative effects, including non-traditional cyber security threats and interrelatedness with traditional security threats, which have become a threat to international peace and security.

In this context, His Excellency noted that some of those who have been devising intrigues against human gains have used modern technology to violate the sovereignty of countries and destabilize their security and economy through falsification, spreading lies and spying on countries and tempering with their currencies. In this regard, he pointed to the damage inflicted on Qatar and others countries as a result of hacking and digital espionage and the abuse of technology and modern science by some countries, stressing that those who misuse cyber technology everywhere must be held accountable.

Al Mahmoud pointed to HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani's address to the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly last September, where His Highness proposed an international conference to regulate the use of digital and information technology in accordance with an international law governing this area, and expressed Qatar's readiness to work with United Nations agencies to organize it legally as well as its willingness to host this conference.

In this regard, he called on the parliaments' meeting today in Geneva to link the call for the use of modern technology to the promotion of peace and development, provided that international peace and security are not harmed, which requires to criminalize cybercrime against the sovereignty of States and the threat to their security and stability.

Due to the importance of this, he said, the third meeting of the heads of parliaments of Europe and Asia, which took place last week in Antalya, the Republic of Turkey, welcomed the call made by HH the Amir to regulate the freedom of use of digital and information technology, and to hold an international conference on this issue, which the State of Qatar is willing to host it.

HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council said we, in Qatar under the leadership of HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, consider that human development is our national capital and our renewable wealth, and we consider the education and participation of youth as the first line of defense for the collective security system, a matter which makes us attach great importance to education, research and technology.

In order to achieve these objectives, the Advisory Council has been discussing and deliberating throughout its successive sessions the legislations for knowledge-based sustainable development and linking it to peace and stability and to protecting human rights and dignity not only in Qatar but also in the world, His Excellency pointed out. For this purpose, the State of Qatar launched numerous initiatives locally and abroad to support education, foster innovations and inventions such as the Qatar Innovation Community, Education above All, and Protect Education in Insecurity and Conflict, he said, pointing to Qatar's pledge to provide quality education for 1 million girls by 2021 announced by HH the Amir at the UN headquarters in New York, in addition to its pledge to educate 10 million children, provide the economic empowerment for half a million young people in the region, sponsor UNESCO projects and cooperate with the United Nations in implementing projects to promote youth employment through capacity building and launching programs to prevent extremism.

HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud said, in his speech before the 139th IPU Assembly which is taking place in Geneva, that in our Arab region there are many issues from which we continue to suffer, primarily the Palestinian cause. We and the Palestinian people in particular are suffering as a result of Israeli occupation and aggression, as a result of Israel's failure to comply with international resolutions and as a result of its rejection of a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital, leading to instability in the region, the succession of wars and the destabilization of security and stability.

His Excellency added that there is no solution to the problems except with justice and respect for the dignity and rights of the human being, which is what the Palestinian people are denied in their own homeland.

He added in this sense it was proposed an additional item on the agenda of the meeting to support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), to which the State of Qatar has recently provided $50 million in financial support for its budget.

HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council began his speech by emphasizing that this periodic meeting of the representatives of the nations' will and deputies from around the world are gathering to discuss common issues, the most important of which are Parliamentary Leadership in Promoting Peace and Development in an Era of Innovation and Technological Change, and strengthening parliamentary cooperation, as well as the reports of the relevant committees and the issues on which they are concerned.

His Excellency noted that in the era of the information revolution and the widening of the spaces of knowledge and communication, parliaments should assume the task of promoting international peace and development by introducing modern methods of communication and harnessing science and technology in the service of members and parliamentary committees.

Concluding, HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council expressed hope that this meeting would come up with resolutions stressing the need to take joint advantage of science and technology and to hold accountable those who misuse modern technologies, and that the IPU should take a leading role in advocating reform of the UN system, and that the goal of all is to work for the good of the humans being and to protect their rights.

This session discusses a number of topics related to strengthening parliamentary cooperation in migration field in the light of the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, as well as democracy and human rights issues. It reviews the reports of the Committee on Peace and International Security and the Commission on Sustainable Development (Trade and Finance), United Nations Affairs Committee and other issues on the agenda of the session, in which more than 1,300 deputies and parliamentary staff are participating.