Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa
international organization
The Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (acronym: ANOCA; French: Association des Comités Nationaux Olympiques d'Afrique, ACNOA, Arabic: رابطة اللجان الأولمبية الوطنية في إفريقيا) is an international organization which represents the current 54 National Olympic Committees of Africa. It serves as the successor to Standing Committee of African Sports or Comité permanent du sport africain founded in 1965 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
It is affiliated with the International Olympic Committee and its affiliated bodies, including the Association of National Olympic Committees, and serves as the continental association of Africa.
The organization's flagship event is the quadrennial African Games, held since 1965.
History
The Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) was founded on June 28, 1981, in Lome, Togo. In July 1965, ANOCA's predecessor, the Standing Committee of African Sports (SCAS) was founded in Brazzaville as Comité Permanent du Sport Africain (CPSA). Consequently, that title for the sports continental body changed to the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (SCSA) on 14 December 1966 in Bamako, Mali.
On 4 March 2023, ANOCA announced their support for the International Olympic Committee's decision to reinstate Russian and Belarusian athletes as neutrals amidst the Russo-Ukrainian war, as well as the countries' participation in the Olympics.
Member countries
In the following table, the year in which the NOC was recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is also given if it is different from the year in which the NOC was created.
ANOCA Regional Zones
ANOCA Zone 1 – North Zone
ANOCA Zone 2 – West Zone A
ANOCA Zone 3 – West Zone B
ANOCA Zone 4 – Central Zone
ANOCA Zone 5 – Central-East Zone
ANOCA Zone 6 – Southern Zone A
ANOCA Zone 7 – Islands
ANOCA Presidents
ANOCA's programme
Encouraging mediation and conciliation between NOCs and governments
Building the foundations of an ambitious sports policy
Providing young athletes with the conditions for success
Promoting sports initiatives
Promoting Olympic ideals and values in Africa
Taking part in the fight against doping, corruption, violence and pandemics
Working to bring peoples together through sport to build a peaceful Africa
Events
African Games
African Youth Games – first held in Rabat, Morocco in 2010 (events also in Casablanca).
The public source identifies “Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa” as international organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Association, National and Olympic.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1190214. Authority coordinates are 9.099, 7.444. 3 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1981, 1966 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.