Dr Milorad Mijatovic, member of the National Assembly’s standing delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, participated in the Third Expert Roundtable entitled "Challenges and Opportunities in Parliamentary Monitoring and Evaluation".
The roundtable organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Parliament of Uganda was held via video link. The Inter-Parliamentary Union adopted the Common Principles for Support to Parliaments and has been organising expert roundtables since 2016 to facilitate their application.
Dr Milorad Mijatovic was one of the speakers at the panel dedicated to the implementation of monitoring and evaluation in parliaments and how the progress of the development of mechanisms for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals in parliaments is measured. Dr Mijatovic presented the National Assembly’s experiences in the area, primarily the activities of the Focus Group for monitoring the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Serbia, which conducted a self-assessment of the capabilities of the National Assembly, followed by an evaluation of the achieved results. He added that a workshop on the parliament’s gender sensitivity was organized last year the conclusion of which was that the National Assembly is significantly above the global average when it comes to the representation of women in the parliament. He stressed the importance of cooperation at the international level in order to achieve the goals set by the 2030 Agenda.
The ensuing debate raised, among other things, the issue of collecting data to measure a country's progress in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. In response, Dr Mijatovic pointed out that "the National Assembly and the Focus Group have the support of the Government, Republic Statistical Office, State Audit Institution and other state institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations and UNDP." The National Assembly’s relevant committees which follow the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, play a significant role in monitoring the situation based on the submitted data", Mijatovic pointed out.
According to the organizers, over fifty parliamentarians from all over the world took part in the gathering, making it the highest-attended virtual expert roundtable dedicated to the application of the Common Principles in Support of Parliaments.
