Parliamentarians are public representatives. Representing the people of their constituency is their fundamental responsibility. It is the role of parliamentarians to connect with people within their constituency and to communicate and introduce matters of local concern into the national debate for decision making. Parliamentarians are community leaders and often have influence and standing outside parliament. They also connect with interest groups, civil society and the local government. Parliamentarians can play a role in ensuring communities are resilient and ready well before a low-level or serious risk emerges. They can communicate regularly with their community and with locally based health workers to remain apprised of community health issues and priorities. They may build coalitions with faith-based or community-based organizations, NGOs, and private-sector organizations to facilitate partnerships or simply keep abreast of who has the expertise and skills that may be of central importance when a crisis hits. When there is a localized health risk, parliamentarians may play a leadership role in helping communities accept, understand and address the risk. This can be done, for example, by getting vaccinated or having their children vaccinated during a measles outbreak, or by adopting lower-risk, hygiene-related behaviour if confronted with cholera or COVID-19. During health emergencies, including SARS, MERS, Ebola, cholera and COVID-19, it is important for parliamentarians to have access to up-to-date, science-based data. Parliamentarians can act within their constituencies to inform, explain, reassure, assist, and advocate. When there is a local health risk of any level or a national or international health emergency, what are the specific risks for my constituents, i.e., patterns of transmission of a communicable disease, risks arising from living arrangements, demographic mix, geographical challenges in terms of distance from health facilities, local availability of health practitioners, etc.? Parliamentarians act as advocates and leaders and support emergency preparedness and health security.Parliamentarians can work individually to support health emergency preparedness, but they can also act collectively to demonstrate leadership on this issue. Political and ideological differences are part of the experience of being a parliamentarian, sitting in a parliament, and undertaking parliamentary activities. An independent report into the COVID-19 experience reported that: National responses were the most effective where decision-making authority was clear, there was capacity to coordinate efforts across actors, including community leaders and levels of government, and formal advisory structures were able to provide timely scientific advice that was heeded. Parliamentarians have an obvious role to play in supporting a coordinated response and identifying and encouraging the participation of relevant community leaders, groups, and various levels of government. They can also help to disseminate scientific information by sharing it through formal and informal platforms. Periods of cohesion may occur after public health emergencies arise. Such periods in the early stages of a health emergency can help to generate trust in the community about the decisions being made. In the absence of cohesion, however, or in the event, parliaments are restricted in their work and not fully involved in decision-making, people may experience concern and distrust about the government’s actions. Past experiences with health emergencies has shown the need for a multisectoral response when more than one sector is affected. A health emergency is highly likely to affect more than one sector, particularly if the health emergency is a multi-hazard event. For example, a tsunami causes injury and illness but also affects water supplies, housing, airports and the provision of government services and health care. Even if a health emergency affects only the health sector, other sectors – such as finance, animal, agricultural, environment, foreign policy and international relations, national parliaments, private sector, and non-state actors– may come into play depending on the nature of the emergency.
“Parliaments have an important domestic function but also act more broadly outside their domestic roles from time to time. One example of this is parliamentarianism, which is when they join with other parliaments and other bodies to promote a parliamentary system of government. They can also enter into organized relationships with other parliaments, international bodies or organizations on a bilateral (with one other entity) or multilateral (with various other entities) basis. These kinds of relationships may also be leveraged to promote emergency preparedness and health security. When they come together, parliaments more effectively demonstrate their importance to democracy and improved domestic and global governance.”
Parliaments are, by their nature, multisectoral because the business of the parliament is the business of all government sectors. This means that all parliamentary activities can contribute to the type of multisectoral effort that is essential to effective preparedness and to an effective response to an actual health risk. Parliamentarians can support a multisectoral response by serving on committees as well as by analysing the potential impact of legislative proposals on various sectors and on the country’s multisectoral response to a health emergency. Coordination needs to be established before the need to respond to a health emergency arises. Successful arrangements to address a number of emerging and existing threats to human health requires government functions and powers to be interoperable across multiple sectors. This can be particularly challenging What works in one country may not work in another. Some administrative mechanisms are presented here because they were found to be useful in some settings. Other countries might wish to examine and consider implementing them, bearing in mind the differences between countries. Where parliamentarians are engaged in these mechanisms, attention should be paid to ensure inclusiveness and representation in terms of gender, political affiliation and other relevant dimensions. Parliamentarians can also get information on whether these or other mechanisms already exist and, if so, ask the relevant officials to present reports on their activities and how they operate within the wider national health emergency strategy. They can also ensure that the necessary legislation is passed to set up these mechanisms and give them the authority they require. Parliaments have an important domestic function but also act more broadly outside their domestic roles from time to time. One example of this is parliamentarianism, which is when they join with other parliaments and other bodies to promote a parliamentary system of government. They can also enter into organized relationships with other parliaments, international bodies or organizations on a bilateral (with one other entity) or multilateral (with various other entities) basis. These kinds of relationships may also be leveraged to promote emergency preparedness and health security. When they come together, parliaments more effectively demonstrate their importance to democracy and improved domestic and global governance. They can also more easily highlight the contribution they are able to make to global diplomacy, discussions, policymaking, decision-making, and law-making. What kinds of supranational and multilateral actions could parliaments take to support improved emergency preparedness and health security? Opportunities presented to parliaments could include, for example, supranational integration mechanisms such as regional parliaments and regional parliamentary bodies that could inform, support or enable actions by participating national parliaments.
(The author is a UPSC aspirant from Raiyar Doodhpathri. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”)
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