Trinidad and To­ba­go was for­mal­ly ad­mit­ted in­to the In­ter-Par­lia­men­tary Union (IPU) at the meet­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion's gov­ern­ing coun­cil on April 16 in Pana­ma City, Pana­ma. This came at the start of the 124th as­sem­bly of the IPU, an in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion of par­lia­ments, es­tab­lished in 1889. The IPU sup­ports the ef­forts of the Unit­ed Na­tions whose ob­jec­tives it shares. The union is the fo­cal point for world­wide par­lia­men­tary di­a­logue and pro­vides tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance to mem­ber par­lia­ments.

It works for peace and co-op­er­a­tion among peo­ples and for the firm es­tab­lish­ment of rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy. The T&T del­e­ga­tion to the IPU was head­ed by Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, and in­clud­ed Op­po­si­tion MP Don­na Cox.Both are mem­bers of the lo­cal ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee.

Jacqui Samp­son, Clerk of the House, at­tend­ed the meet­ing of Sec­re­taries Gen­er­al of Par­lia­ment, an af­fil­i­at­ed body.