 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Okay, we're back. We're live. It's a given Thursday. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Think Tech. And this is, gee, I think it's Think Tech Global today is what it is. We're talking global. And we have the honor, okay, of Martin Chung-Gung, who is the Secretary General of the IPU, otherwise known as the Inter-Polumentary Union, which is a global organization. Welcome. Welcome to the show, Martin. Thank you very much, Jay, for having me over. Great to have you. So let's talk about your reason for being here. I mean, it's quite something. The Secretary General of the IPU should come to Hawaii. Why? Well, the thing is we represent an organization that is made up of institutions that are representative of society. And it's only normal that the person who is responsible for coordinating their work should reach out to the wider society and not just stay at headquarters in Geneva. So it's part of my strategy to go out and reach as many stakeholders as possible so that our decisions and policy are really informed by the interests of the people. So, I mean, we'll get to the mission of the IPU in a minute, but when you go out, and Amanda Ellis of the East West Center is your handler here and your arranger and your driver, I think, and getting you around to various events at the university and in government. And so my question is, you know, when you have this experience, when you speak to people, when you educate them about the IPU, what do you tell them? What are your points? Well, the thing I tell them is that we have a common agenda, a universal agenda, and that we all have to work together. It is not legislatures doing their business. The government is doing their own business, and the people of civil society, all of us are in the same boat. And if we want to ensure sustainability in this world today, then all hands have to be on deck. That's the message I'm conveying. And I'm also saying that parliaments as representatives of the people reflect the interests, the diverse interests of society, and they are well-placed to mediate between these interests and come up with solutions that address the broader needs of society. That's the message that I have. I think it's a complex world today. It is. It is a big task. Well, let's talk about the IPU for a minute. Established in 1889. That's really ancient already. And still going strong with most of the world, most of the nations of the world are members of the IPU. Can you talk about it? Yeah. Well, let me go back to 1889. Fine. When we found it, that's some 130 years ago, at the time the IPU was just an idea that was put forward by two pacifists, a French member of parliament, Frédéric Passy and a British member of parliament called Alexander Cremer. The two of them created the organization, and these were pacifists in the late 19th century, and they believed in dialogue and mediation as a means of resolving conflict. They believed that countries did not have to go to war for any reason. That movement, I think, is still relevant today, that we need to continue to preach dialogue, and when we look at what is going around in the world today, it's only dialogue that can help resolve conflict. And so over the years, the IPU has moved from being a group of a network of individual legislators to a global organization of 178 national parliaments today. We have the institutional anchor in all these parliaments, and we are driven by the same ambition and aspiration, that is to make sure that parliaments are relevant to the people they represent, deliver on their expectations, and we do this in several areas. We may want to talk, of course, the founding values of peace that are still relevant today, but we are also looking at human rights, gender equality as part of our drive to make parliaments more representative of the broader society. We are looking at the sustainable development agenda that is now very topical, an agenda that stresses sustainability and its objective mentions, but also looking at how you address the needs of everybody and not just a privileged few. The mantra is leaving no one behind, and we think that parliaments and the IPU stand in good stead to drive that process. The ultimate altruism, global altruism, I think, and democracy as well. Democracy, yeah, we, of course, when we look at democracy in the past, we have conceived of this in very abstract terms. We have talked about all those values that are embodied in democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the freedom to choose one's leaders, but we have never really asked that question, what do you do with democracy? What do you do with strong parliaments? Now we are beginning to address that, and we are saying that democracies are good, but they are not an end in itself. They are just a means towards an end, and the end is a better life for the people. And parliaments are key instruments of democracy, especially strong and representative parliaments. Accountable parliaments, transparent parliaments can help deliver on that aspiration, and that is where we are focusing our attention. The new development agenda, the sustainable development agenda gives us a golden platform for us to make parliaments and democracy relevant. We use the tools of democracy, the instruments of democracy to improve upon the lives of the people. Let me unpack some of that. So one of those 187 is Iceland, the alting in Iceland. I was there a couple of weeks ago, and I was really interested to find that the alting is a legislature that was established in the year 930, 930. Yes. It's the oldest parliament in the world. And they're a member of the IPU. Oh, yeah, a long-standing member of the IPU, and very active in the IPU, and lots of things that we can learn from them. One thing we know is that this is a parliament that although it's taped in its history, it's forward-looking, and it's got what we call the Committee of the Future. The parliament today is not legislating for the immediate future, but looking way into the distant future. Commendable, actually. It's something that we're encouraging many other countries to do. That's the other thing I wanted to ask you about. So you find a legislature here and one there, and they're different. And this may be more advanced, more into human rights, what have you, and this one may be not so much. And so you have a difference of ideas, a difference of visions, maybe a difference of the fairness of their operating procedures, whatever they are. So it's an opportunity for, what do I call it, legislative arbitrage. Take the good ideas from here and put them there. Or to show these guys that those guys are better off and they should cut out some bad practices and all that. Raising the bar for everyone. How do you do that? Yeah, first of all, we do what we call standard setting. You have just said that you have a diverse background of parliament around the world. Yes, we believe that this is something that is legitimate. But then there are some core values and criteria by which all parliaments can be judged. First of all, we have identified a representativeness as a core criterion. Parliaments for them to be effective, to be legitimate, have to be representative of the entire society. Not only in terms of who is in parliament or who is representing who in parliament, but in terms of the issues that are addressed in parliament. So a parliament has to be representative. It has to be transparent in a way it does business. It shouldn't be this secret society. It has to be accessible to the people. You know, you can walk into your parliament. I was amazed at the way the parliament, the legislature here in Hawaii has been designed. It's open, you know, no barriers. You can just walk in and that is how we conceive. A state of mind. A state of mind. And we want a parliament that is accountable to the people too. They have been elected on a platform and they have to be able to report to the people on what they're doing. So we identified those criteria, first of all, that are now universally accepted. Universal criteria. China or the United States, they agree that if you want to be characterized as a parliament, you have to reflect those criteria. Then we move on. We realize that parliaments are at different stages of development. You have mentioned the Altingi in Iceland that have been there for a long time. It's developed some capacity and knowledge over the years. And so you can say it's a fully fleshed parliament. Then you have others that are challenged. They are small parliament. There are some that are imagined from situations of conflict. Others that are transitioning from dictatorship to democracy, quote, unquote. And those are challenged. They lack the skills, the basic skills in terms of parliamentary procedure. The administration, for example, maybe weak. And that's where we step in and we provide assistance to those parliaments. What does that assistance look like? I mean, for example, I can imagine you going in, making a study, talking to people, reading the paper, whatever it may be, looking at the resulting legislation and figuring out whether they're really up to the standard you'd like to see or the powers that be, the global standard, whether they're up to that or not. And then you would, I suppose, write a report and tell them you're not really up to the standard. You need to do this, that and the other thing. Is that what you do? Yeah, well, we do something that is slightly different. We don't come in with any preconceived ideas. We come in, first of all, ideally, should come from the parliament's concern. They should request such assistance from the inter-parliamentary union. But sometimes we are more proactive when we realize that some parliaments are really struggling and we encourage them to seek support from the organization. And what we do is we don't come in and say, this is what is good for you and you're wrong or you're weak in this area. We sit down with them and say, okay, these are the criteria for strong parliaments. Where do you lie in this scale? And it's up to them to start telling us that, listen, we are very weak on legislation, we're weak on representativeness or transparency and all of that. And so together we identify these weaknesses and strong points, strong points, too. And again, then we work with them to put in place a roadmap for addressing those challenges. To give them suggestions. Yes. Procedural suggestions or substantive or both? Yeah, both. Some countries may just be suffering. And I think yesterday we were discussing with the Senate Majority Leader here in Hawaii. Some countries may, the parliamentarians may not just know parliamentary procedure, how to behave in parliament, what the rules are. So we discuss that with them and school them on parliamentary procedure. Educational arbitrage. And again, you have to move beyond that. And you say that parliamentary procedure is just an instrument for you to get somewhere to make sure that you have better legislation, you have better oversight of the government and you provide the resources, budget resources to the government. And then you say, on what issues? And that's where, for instance, you take the development agenda and you say it's good for the parliament to develop legislation that promotes renewable energies, clean energies and sustainable development. In that regard, you're looking at the whole country. It's not just a legislature. In order to determine the policies you want to. It's the whole country. You have to look at everything. Yes, you have to help parliament address the needs of the whole country and leave no one behind, which is important. Yes, yes, yes. So I ask you this. Yes. Can you give me an example of a legislature in a country around the world that the IPU has had remarkable success with? Can you tell me the short story about that? Yeah, well, there are many. There are many. I think, of course, the successes would come from those parliaments that are struggling. You know, when you take Rwanda, for instance. Rwanda that was kind of had traumatized by genocide in the early 90s. And now that parliament has emerged and is becoming a strong parliament. Very good. With your help. Yeah, with our help. We went in at the time when the parliament was traumatized by, you know, they had a transitional parliament. They have graduated from a transitional parliament into a full parliament, full-fledged parliament. Then you have that. And so they're working well now. You look at Uganda next door. Uganda has been very successful in taking on the government on the issue of health. I remember several years ago we worked with them in maternal newborn and child health. And as a result of the work that we did with them, they put in place a roadmap for monitoring government action in this particular area. And I remember that the government was forced to allocate more resources to the health sector in Uganda as a result of pressure from the parliament because the parliament had become aware of the importance of maternal newborn and child health. So you have little bits and pieces like that. You take Myanmar. Myanmar is a country that is emerging from, well, authoritarian rule. And at the time we went into Myanmar, people would not touch them with a long pole of, well, it's military dictatorship. But we had to work with them because we had identified entry points. We had foreseen that this parliament was opening up to the rest of the world and we had to accompany them. And so we've put in place a program for that parliament that is working very well in terms of parliamentary procedures and very importantly also getting them to address issues that are controversial and that they don't like. I don't know if you know about the Rohingya issue. So there's some bit of accountability there. And that's the beauty of bringing these parliaments within the fold of the IPU. Then you hold them up to certain standards. If you leave them out, they are held up to no standards. And they become rogue parliaments. Holding up a global mirror for them. So they can see themselves clearly. Have you had any notable lack of success in a given country? Whether you went in, you tried, but the country was going the wrong direction and you could not fix it. Well, a country like Burundi is a source of grief for me in particular. Because this is a parliament that was suffering in the late 90s and we went out on a limb to support them and maintain them. But the parliament has been struggling of late to play the role of a peace abitter within the country. And it saddens me when I go from Hawaii, I'm going to go to Burundi to try to revive, to revive the flame of dialogue and reconciliation in the country so that that parliament can play a strong role. That's great. Did you go back to try again? Yes, I'm going to try. I never give up. The organization never gives up. So we will go back there and help them. It may not be of their own making, but we want to make sure that we forge that political commitment on the part of the parliament, but also those stakeholders that are outside the parliament, that is predominant in Burundi today. So how is the IPU funded for its activities? Do you get money from the United Nations or other global organizations? Our main source of funding comes from the public past. Public contributions? Yes, public contributions from the parliaments. They come out of the parliament themselves. The bulk of our funding, the co-funding comes from our member parliaments. That is from the public treasury. That's what we use to run the organization better. In addition to that, we have what we call voluntary funding that comes from development cooperation agencies. It comes from some United Nations agencies with whom we have joint programs that provide resources, especially when it comes to strengthening parliamentary capacity, developing standards for democracy. We do need that extra resource. Increasingly, we are reaching out to the private sector and foundations to provide resources. It's a challenge for us because the organization is very conservative and people are very worried. Each time I reach out to a private sector entity, they're always asking me the question, are you sure the resources are clean? I tell them, yes, I have done my bragun check. It's important for credibility. Yes, for credibility, yes. I'm really wondering, there's a dynamic in every organization. I always compare human organizations to bacterial colonies. I'm sorry. There's various stages of development, of success and failure. Ultimately, the result, whatever that is. How do you see the IPU as having developed in the past 130 years? What is the dynamic? Is it expanding? Is it changing its policies? How will it change in the future? I told you that we started off as a small network of members of parliament, not parliaments, but individual members of parliament who were driven by that common objective of promoting peace. Over the years, the organizations have maintained that stance that it has to play a strong role in promoting peace and security in the world. But then, it has also developed a strong democracy mandate because this is born out of the conviction that you cannot do anything meaningful if a society, even if the institutions of governance are not informed by democratic standards. Freedom of expression, freedom of association and all of that. And so, we have looked at the issue of human rights. Human rights of members of parliament, because you may be surprised to know that being a parliamentarian is a fairly risky job in many countries. We have currently about 600 cases of members of parliament around the world whose rights have been violated on account of having performed their duties as they should. Very troubling. Yeah, troubling. So, we go out to support them. And this does not end yet also with many governments. But I think it's important that an institution that is intended, a parliament that is intended to protect the human rights of citizens, should function in a way that is not impeded. Because if you stifle freedom of expression of members of parliament, then you're stifling the institution. So, you have that. We have moved into that. We have looked at the issue of representative institutions, empowerment of women. So, you're doing more of that now? More of that. We are making sure that, as I said, parliaments are more representative. So, you have gender equality. That's a more modern issue than what was in 1889. Yes, that's right. And then you have to branch out to the young people. You have to make sure that they are into the mainstream institutions of governance because they have a lot of innovative ideas that they can contribute to the way society is run. But in many countries, they are forsaken. For instance, we did a study a couple of years ago and we realized that only 2%, less than 2% of the world parliamentarians are made up of people below the age of 30. But then these are the people who account for 51% of the society. So, there's a discrepancy. More and more. Yes, there's a discrepancy. We have to fix that. So, we're promoting empowerment of young people. Yes. And then... That's very modern. True. In 1889, I don't know if there was... They didn't think about it. I didn't think... I don't know if there was violent extremism. Nobody was over 30. Yes, in 1889, I was saying, terrorism was not the phenomenon we know today. And even up to the past several years, you could localize terrorism. But now it's become a global phenomenon. And it is one of the single most serious threats. So, you're concerned with that? Yes, we're doing that. We're getting parliaments to address the issue of violent extremism that transforms into terrorism. Yes. Parliament being an institution that brings together various views. We think that it is important that that dialogue takes place in parliament instead of in the streets or that certain groups of society are frustrated because their issues are not taken into account. So, this is something that we are doing more of. And then we have the broad development agenda that is now on the table. We also have climate change. We all have climate change. That's for sure. Yes. The negative effects of climate change that we need to address. There's a lot of work there. Yes. There's a lot of work. And I am very gratified to know what Hawaii is doing, very proactive in promoting, for instance, clean energy, renewable energy as a means of mitigating the harmful effects of climate change. That's great. And you can take that to other countries, other legislatures and tell them about what we're doing and maybe suggest the same. So, let me shift, though, to you for a moment, Martin. Okay. Good pleasure. How did you get involved? You're from Cameroon. Yes. You're one of only, what, 12, since 1889, 12 secretaries-general of the IP. Eight. Hey, I'm sorry. I'm the eighth section. I averaged the years. Yes. So, actually, it's about 15 years as the average period of service for secretaries-general. Yes. So, that's a long tenure, relatively speaking, as a CEO. Yes. You know, how far in are you and how did you get there? Yeah, actually, I was elected secretary-general in 2014, 125 years after the organization was created. And I just am back on my second term as secretary-general on the first of July this year, 2018, a few weeks ago. And it was, I think, a historic moment. People tend to say, oh, you made history. But yes, I made history. But I want to believe that I was elected to this position on account of my skills and experience and qualities, not on account of having an African background. Of course, I- First African, first non-European. Yes, that's right. In all this time. Yes. Well, because the organization was created basically by the Europeans. And over the years, you know, the Europeans thought it was, you know, their private preser, so to speak. And when I ran as secretary-general, I ran against several other candidates. There were some 54 candidates, and most of them Europeans. And I am proud that I came up top. I think that it is an opportunity for me and a challenge, because being the first African, I have to prove that people from other continents will deliver on strong, efficient institutions such as this. Well, no question, the challenges lie ahead of you, Martin. Yes. You know, the Trump administration must be a quandary for anybody interested in the relationship of the executive branch and the legislative branch. You know, it's unprecedented in this country. And I wonder, you know, how you see that and how the IPU sees the devolution of American democracy these days. It's very clear the Constitution is under threat. It's very clear the legislature is not working the way it used to work. And according to a lot of people, it's not working well anymore. Where does this fit? Is this part of a global trend? Does this give you concern? Yeah, well, the thing is, I believe that what is unfolding in the United States goes to the very core of the work of the IPU. That is, we realize that parliaments across the world are challenged. We see the dominance of the executive arms of government. We see threats to the institution of parliament coming from other stakeholders, be they arms groups or government officials. So we need to address this. What is happening here in the United States therefore is not particular to the United States. But you would expect that the United States being a longer established democracy would be doing better in this particular way. We believe, and that's the beauty of democracy, that it is always work in progress and that it is a system that is self-correcting. If you were in a dictatorship in the United States today, then everybody will resign their self-refact that, well, we have this situation that we don't like. But no, you realize that there is a problem and I'm sure the efforts and attempts to fix the problem, to make sure that the balance of power is what it should be, that the various institutions, be it the legislature, the government, the administration or the judiciary are functioning at arms length of each other. It is something that you have to do all the time and you cannot be very complacent about it. And the IPU can sort of get a bird's eye view to see populism affecting the way government works in one country and then comparing changes in another country and finding global trends. That is so interesting and you're in a great spot to see it. Thank you, Martin. Martin, Shangon. Thank you very much. We really appreciate your coming down. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having this conversation with you today. Aloha. Thank you. I'm Jay Fiedel. Think Tech.