Rome, 6 October 2008 – The president of the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE), Izaskun Bilbao, and the UN Millennium Campaign’s Deputy Director for Europe, Marina Ponti, signed an agreement this morning in Rome to encourage European regional parliaments to actively promote the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) amongst their citizenry.

Both institutions committed to work together to engage the 74 regional parliaments, members of CALRE, on awareness raising initiatives and activities to promote the MDGs, preferably addressed at children and youth. To this end, the UN Millennium Campaign will provide the regional parliaments with campaign materials and resources on the MDGs.

One of the first examples of this new collaboration agreement will be the “Debate con nosotros” program developed by the Basque Parliament. Together with the UN Millennium Campaign in Spain and a group of Basque NGOs, the Basque Parliament will run an educational program to teach children both about the functioning of Parliament and about the MDGs. Students will learn about the different components of the legislative chamber and about its internal procedures and mandates. They will also be invited to participate in a parliamentarian model, which will have the MDGs as its central subject.

The UN Millennium Campaign and CALRE have also agreed to follow up every six months on the results of this agreement.