A/HRC/27/51 “intelligence” or “research and development” or “energy”. Secret funds, slush funds or “contingency funds” must be subject to regulation by parliament. 71. States should significantly reduce military spending and develop conversion strategies88 to reorient resources towards social services, the creation of employment in peaceful industries, and greater support to the post-2015 development agenda. States should individually and multilaterally devote savings released from reduced military spending to resourcing the economic and social transition required to respond to the global climate change challenge, as envisaged by the United Nations in establishing the Green Climate Fund established by the United Nations pursuant to the Framework Convention on Climate Change.89 Furthermore, a portion of the financial resources released should be devoted to research and development of sustainable energy, including solar energy, and should be used to address the looming problem of water shortage, which has the potential to fuel future wars. An international effort to develop efficient desalination industries should be envisaged. 72. States should increase funding for research into conflict-prevention, addressing the roots of conflict and promoting sustainable development, and significantly reduce funding for military projects at universities and other scientific institutes. 73. States should ferret out waste, corruption and bribery in the arms trade and impose severe penalties on offenders. States should investigate the diversion of weapons, which sometimes fall into the hands of criminals and cause additional chaos and death. 2. Recommendations to parliaments 74. Parliamentarians should regularly inform, and consult with, their constituents, particularly on matters of fiscal and budget priorities. They should resist the pressure of vested interests, and the lobbies of defence contractors and others belonging to the military-industrial complex. 75. Parliamentarians should put in place specialized and well-resourced crossparty parliamentary defence committees with competence to oversee military spending and ferret out diversion, corruption and waste. 76. Parliaments should organize training programmes for parliamentarians to assist them with the complexities of military budgets and with assessing the risks of diversion and corruption. 77. Parliaments should develop interparliamentary capacity-building and cooperation programmes to strengthen oversight functions in young democracies at bilateral and multilateral levels. 78. Parliaments should counter lobbyists who engage in undemocratic influence on behalf of the military-industrial complex. 3. Recommendations to civil society and national human rights institutions 79. Civil society and national human rights institutions should demand public participation in defence policy and procurement and public participation in national budgeting, supporting the reallocation of military spending to meet urgent environmental and social needs, such as in the areas of climate change and income 88 89 See www.ips-dc.org/blog/demilitarizing_the_economy_a_movement_is_underway. See www.gcfund.org, unfccc.int/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/green_climate_fund/items/5869.php. 23