The CPA in 2024: A New Year's message from the CPA Secretary-General
Transcript: 2024 New Year's Message from the CPA Secretary-General
Happy New Year from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Secretariat. 2023 was a very busy year for the CPA, culminating in December with our online conference on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And I am delighted that this month, January 2024, we're launching our new Parliamentary Handbook on Artificial Intelligence, as part of our work on technology and innovation. This will be a busy and important year for the Commonwealth and indeed for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Our networks are a critical and integral part of the work that we do. In December of last year, the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) came together for their workshop in Tanzania and I know that CWP, Small Branches and our Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities networks will all be very busy throughout this year, both globally and regionally. In March we will have Commonwealth Day and of course that Commonwealth Day will happen during the ongoing Commonwealth Year of Youth, youth engagement being such a critical priority for Parliaments and Parliamentarians and more broadly for the work of the Commonwealth.
Our partner organisations in the accredited and associated organisations are so important to the work that we do in the CPA and in particular this year we’ll be working alongside our partners in the run up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the CHOGM meeting, being hosted by Samoa in the Pacific in October of 2024. And then for us we will have our Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, the CPC, in Sydney, New South Wales in November of this year, bringing together Parliaments and Parliamentarians from throughout the Commonwealth with parliamentary staff and partners to engage on the big issues that matter to our members.
I look forward to attending the Commonwealth Law Ministers meeting. Last year we marked the anniversaries of both the Commonwealth Charter and the Latimer House Principles, and it's so important that we rededicate ourselves to all that is set out both in the Charter and in those Latimer House Principles. I want to thank everyone with whom we work, both internally in the CPA and in our partner organisations, and in particular, to say that the regions of the CPA are critical to our success.
And I want to thank all of the Regional Secretaries, but in particular to welcome those that have taken up new responsibilities as Regional Secretaries at this time. I wish you well for 2024. Thank you.