Kamikawa Yoko, MP for Japan and Chair of AFPPD at the opening of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) annual conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Credit: APDA
By Cecilia Russell
KUALA LUMPUR & JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sep 10 2026 (IPS)
“As parliamentarians, we should understand that behind every demographic indicator is a human story,” Kamikawa Yoko, MP Japan and Chair of AFPPD, reminded lawmakers in her opening address to the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) annual conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The conference, with the theme of ‘Parliamentary Leadership for the Future: An All-of-Society Approach to the Care Economy and Demographic Resilience,’ took place in the shadow of the devastating floods in Nepal, which Dr. Toshima Karki, MP Nepal, described as an “alarm from the roof of the world.” The impact of climate change on women, the elderly, and youth underpinned the concerns of many of the parliamentarians over the two-day conference.
Alexander Nanta Linggi, Minister of Works, Malaysia, opened with a strong statement about what parliamentary leadership means for the future.
“An all-of-society approach to the care economy and demographic resilience is ultimately about people,” he said.
“Parliamentarians have a unique role. We are not merely lawmakers. We are voices for our communities. We see the struggles of families caring for aging parents. We hear the concerns of young people uncertain about their future. We witness the inequalities that still affect women and vulnerable groups. This is why parliamentary leadership matters. We have the responsibility to translate lived realities into meaningful policy,” Linggi elaborated, adding that “a caring society is not a cost to be borne; it is an investment in social stability, economic resilience, and national well-being.”
Pio Smith, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA and UN Assistant Secretary-General, noted the stark reality of fewer resources and the growing global polarization that parliamentarians were caught in.
“Doing more with less cannot mean doing less for those who need us most. It means making smarter choices, strengthening systems, improving efficiency, and ensuring that limited resources are directed toward investments that deliver lasting impact,” Smith said.
Dr. Toshima Karki, a member of Nepal’s House of Representatives, speaking at the AFPPD annual conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Credit: APDA
Officially opening the conference, the President of the Senate of Malaysia, Dato Awang Bemee Awang Ali Basah, argued that “Demographic resilience requires an all-of-society approach. No single ministry or government can solve these challenges—we need government, parliament, the private sector, civil society, academia, communities, families, and individuals working together.”
During the two-day conference, there were many powerful presentations, intertwining social challenges of youth, women, and the elderly and climate change.
Howard Lee Chuan How, MP Malaysia and Secretary-General of AFPPD Global, said the organization’s move to Kuala Lumpur should mark a new phase of globalization. AFPPD’s 30 national committees represent countries with a combined population of more than 4.3 billion people, over half of humanity.
“The stories of our people are therefore not peripheral to the global debate. They are a major part of the human story. The solutions we develop across our region, from aging and fertility to youth, gender, care, and climate resilience, have the potential to help shape solutions for the world,” Lee said.
For Syerleena Abdul Rashid, MP Malaysia, this is deeply personal. She started her speech by telling the conference that her mother, aged 81, grew up without air conditioners and weather apps.
“She now also lives with dementia, so when the temperature rises, I cannot simply just send her a text message saying, ‘Mom, please drink more water.’ She may not read it, she may not remember it, and she may not recognize that she’s becoming dehydrated or unwell.”
Syerleena listed the issues.
By 2030, 15% of Malaysians will be 60 or older.
In Malaysia, floods in November and December 2024 affected over 137,000 people, including 40,000 displaced families.
Older persons face specific risks such as loss of medication, mobility challenges during evacuation, and the inability to access digital warnings.
Then she reminded parliamentarians of the policy gaps, including age-unfriendly disaster relief centers, which lack ramps, quiet spaces for dementia, or proper medical storage, and lack of data around age groups and specialized welfare checks for the elderly during heatwaves, and challenged them to fix these.
But it is not only the elderly that are affected.
Dolores Devesi, Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Sub-Regional Office for the Pacific, reminded the audience that the impact of a loss of time in school could have lifelong impacts.
“Schools become more than a place of learning. They connect girls to peers, and they also become a center of information sharing amongst peers… When these connections are interrupted, risks rise, and we already know… that gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, unintended pregnancy, STIs, early marriage, and so forth, also come into play.”
Counting the cost of young girls and adolescents is crucial, she says.
“When a cyclone destroys a school, when flooding cuts off a community, when families are displaced, we naturally count the infrastructure and the economic cost, but the questions we need to be asking ourselves are how many young girls stop going to school, how many adolescent-age children have stopped going to school, why, how come they haven’t returned to school, and why are they still not in school? What happened to them and to their safety while they are away?”
Sahibzada Sibghatullah, MP Pakistan, said it was crucial to count the youth in the impacts of climate change; making up 64% of the country’s population, they bear the brunt of lost education and economic stability.
“A flood closes a school, and a child loses a year of learning that she or he may never recover back. A flood destroys a small shop, and a young man loses the only job he had. A flood cuts a road, and a young mother cannot reach a health center. And when a family loses everything, it is very often the daughter who is taken out of school first and married early. These are climate impacts. We must call them by that name.”
And he noted—it was the youth that rebuilt after the floods too.
“Let me end with this: In Pakistan, when a flood takes a village, it is the young who rebuilt it. They do not ask whose factory caused the warming. They do not ask who failed to cut emissions. They only ask to be counted. Let us count them. Let us fund them. Let us legislate with them, and not merely about them.”
A group photo of parliamentarians and delegates at the recent Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) annual conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Credit: APDA
It was during question time that Karki said she could barely conceal the anger she felt about the floods that left at least 1,300 people and more than 5,500 missing.
“Today I come with a warning from the Himalayas. I’m here to tell you the snow is disappearing. The snow is disappearing, and with it, the safety of my people.”
She listed the impact on roads, bridges, homes, schools, health posts, businesses, and hydropower projects that took decades to build and were destroyed in minutes.
“However, this is not simply a disaster. This is an alarm from the roof of the world.”
She continued, “Nepal contributes only around 0.03 percent of the global greenhouse emissions. Yet it is among one of the highly vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change.”
“We did not build the smokestacks. We did not burn the coal. Yet our children are compelled to bury their parents and parents to their children under the debris of a crisis authored elsewhere.”
“Climate crisis for Nepal for us is not only an environmental crisis; it’s a developmental crisis. It’s an economic crisis, a food crisis, a public health crisis, and ultimately, it’s a crisis of justice.”
The meeting was organized by the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) and the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA). It was supported by the Japan Trust Fund (JTF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), AFPPD Malaysia, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
IPS UN Bureau Report
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Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at IPSnews.