PARLIAMENT - The Speaker of the Burkina Faso National Assembly, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, has called on African parliaments to draw a lesson of women emancipation in parliamentary diplomacy from the Rwandan Parliament.

Addressing the Lower Chamber of Deputies during the opening of the parliamentary first term of 2009, Kaboré praised the Rwandan parliament for hosting the biggest number of democratically elected women MPs in the world.

"It is an honour for anybody who stands before this globally leading parliament; Rwanda’s democratic experience should be an inspiration to all African parliament…I take this opportunity to implement a concrete cooperation between my parliament and the Rwandan Parliament,” Kaboré told the Rwandan lawmakers.

As Rwanda still leads the global table of women in parliament, Burkina Faso is ranked 21 in Africa and 74 worldwide with 111 Members of which 17 (15percent) are women.

The Burkina Speaker who is in the country on an invitation of his counterpart, Rose Mukantabana, also invited her to Ouagadougou to strengthen the relations between both parliaments and both countries.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mukantabana welcomed Kaboré’s invitation and also pointed out that Rwanda is always open to whoever wants to learn from it and ready to exchange experiences. She also briefed legislators on her private meeting with Kaboré that was held hours earlier before the open session.

Kaboré is accompanied by five Members of the Burkina Parliament; the team is expected to start a countrywide tour today before departing back home on Saturday.

In a separate development Mukantabana presided over the opening of the first term of 2009 with a presentation on several activities the parliament will emphasise on including revision of laws, debates and deliberations of different reports that are expected to come up in the parliament and summoning of different government officials among other activities.

Ends