Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa

[4] In 1984, Jan Nico Scholten[5] took the initiative for the foundation of AWEPAA, the Association of West European Parliamentarians for Action against Apartheid.

The organisation's primary orientation, being established for and by parliamentarians, was to mobilise politicians, from democratically elected European parliaments, against apartheid.

With apartheid over, AWEPAA[7] was renamed 'The Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa' (AWEPA) in 1993, and has since grown to some 1500 members.

During the 1990s, AWEPA became active in areas such as election observation and parliamentary and democratic capacity building at regional, national, provincial and local levels in Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa.

Thematically, AWEPA activities promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, including such areas as poverty reduction, women and children's rights, HIV and AIDS, and peace and security.

Strengthening the role of parliament in promoting peace, reconciliation and good governance are strong elements of the capacity building programmes in these countries.

AWEPA's Vice-President's are Maja Ingold of Switzerland, Jeppe Kofod of Denmark, Patrick Meinhardt of Germany, Olivia Mitchell of Ireland, Henk Jan Ormel of the Netherlands, Rosita Runegrund of Sweden, and Egidijus Vareikis of Lithuania.

The Council is composed of the members of the Executive Committee, Dr. Jan Nico Scholten (Honorary President of AWEPA), and the following persons: Thijs Berman, Jan Willem Bertens, Sabine de Bethune, Katharine Bulbulia, Baron Chidgey, Ingrida Circene, Minodora Cliveti, John Corrie, Alain Destexhe, Luc Dhoore, Therese Frösch, Barty L. Fuchs, Theodossis Georgiou, Chantal Gill’ard, Pär Granstedt, Carina Hägg, Jan Hamáček, Johan van Hecke, Maja Ingold, Brunhilde Irber, Tadeusz Iwiński, Inge Jäger, Kimmo Kiljunen, Krista Kiuru, Karsten Lauritzen, Kerstin Lundgren, Josep Maldonado, Lydia Maximus, Silver Meikar, Magda de Meyer, Denis Naughten, Charlie O'Connor, Matthew Offord, Maria Antonia Moreno Areias De Almeida Santos, and Judith Schwentner.

The European Sections seek to keep Africa high on the political agenda in Europe and facilitate African-European Parliamentary dialogue.

[50] Current sections include: Austria,[51] Belgium,[52] Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Flanders,[53] France, Germany,[54] Greece, Hungary, Ireland,[55] Italy, Latvia,[56] Lithuania,[57] Malta, The Netherlands,[58] Norway, Poland,[59] Portugal, Romania,[60] Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,[61] Sweden,[62] Switzerland,[63] United Kingdom[64] and The European Parliament.

[65] The execution of the AWEPA programmes is made possible through the financial support a broad funding base composed of government agencies, NGO's, and INGO's.