Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa
organization
The Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) is an international parliamentary association that is strictly non-partisan, founded by European parliamentarians in 1984. In cooperation with African parliaments, AWEPA works to strengthen parliamentary democracy in Africa, keep Africa high on the political agenda in Europe, and facilitate African-European parliamentary dialogue.
With its roots in the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, AWEPA now works in Africa from a development perspective to strengthen the core functions of parliaments: oversight, representation and legislation.
AWEPA has some 1500 current and former European parliamentarians as members from the European Parliament, almost all member states of the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. AWEPA has two offices in the European cities of Brussels and its headquarters in Amsterdam; and 9 African offices in Arusha, Bujumbura, Cape Town, Juba, Kampala, Kigali, Kinshasa, Maputo, and Nairobi.
Founder
In 1984, Jan Nico Scholten took the initiative for the foundation of AWEPAA, the Association of West European Parliamentarians for Action against Apartheid. He sought to coordinate at the international level the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. As President of AWEPAA he travelled through Europe and to the United States and Canada to stimulate support for sanctions.
History
Since its founding in 1984, AWEPAA has worked by implementing parliamentary capacity building programmes in Africa. The organisation's primary orientation, being established for and by parliamentarians, was to mobilise politicians, from democratically elected European parliaments, against apartheid.
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