MPs from 13 ACP-EU countries join the appeal for a UN Parliamentary Assembly
The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly was promoted last week in the margins of the 25th session of ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly which was held in the European Parliament in Brussels. The Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly was represented with an information stand and the co-chair of the campaign's parliamentary council, Jo Leinen, a Member of the European Parliament, was one of the delegates participating in the ACP-EU assembly which brings together elected representatives of African, Caribbean, and Pacific states and the European Union.
The campaign was delighted to welcome 18 elected representatives from 13 countries as new supporters of the international appeal for a UN Parliamentary Assembly:
Kokou Lucien Houngnibo and Boniface Yehouetome from Benin, Doamba Benjamine and Achille Tapsoba from Burkina Faso, Dharamkumar Seerat from Guyana, Zita Gurmai MEP from Hungary, Fitz Jackson from Jamaica, Mariem Bilal from Mauritania, Piet van der Walt from Namibia, Abdourhaname Chegou and Amina Tiémoko from Niger, Suleiman Isyak Ahmed from Nigeria, Ibrahim Bundu and Alpha B. Lewally from Sierra Leone, Milner Tozaka from the Solomon Islands, David Martin MEP from the United Kingdom, and Sithembile Mlotshwa, a Senator from Zimbabwe.
"The idea of a world parliament seemed to go naturally with many officials regardless of their origins. I talked to representatives of mostly West-African nations, including Cape Verde," said Alfred Ngaffi who was present in Brussels and who is the Executive Director of GoGovernance, an NGO from Cameroon participating in the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly.
In March this year, the proposal was well received in the National Assembly of Senegal. The National Assembly's Vice-President Aimé Assine subsequently joined the campaign's parliamentary council. Two weeks ago, the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly was also discussed in the margins of a visit of a parliamentary delegation from the Ivory Coast to Senegal.