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The Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Mninwa Mahlangu, today met with the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), Dr William Shija, following Mahlangu's appointment in July as the First Chairperson of CPA (Africa Region).

Shija, based in London at the CPA head office, is on a week long visit to Africa, which is the largest region, with the purpose of briefing Chairpersons on the strategy implementation. Shija informed the meeting that regional branches are autonomous and it is important that each region has its own strategic plan.

Because of the work done at regional level, he further said that the CPA managed to have meaningful partnerships with organizations such as the World Bank and embarked on programmes such as parliamentary bench marks and closely working with Institutes such as Centre for Democracy.

In supporting the regions, CPA Head quarters have programmes such as:
Parliamentary Seminars that assist in planting the seed of comparative parliamentary practices where different regions exchange views on best practices
Specialised Workshops on topical issues such as HIV/Aids, poverty, economics, climate change etc which are held annually
Annual regional meetings where regions give feedback on progress and challenges enabling them to assist where possible.
Annual conference where all branches meet and the host branch has the liberty of choosing topical issues for discussion. He announced that the this year's conference will be held from September 28 to October 6 in Tanzania and issues such as the world's financial crisis, effects on financial crisis for women, climate change and terrorism will feature prominently this year.

"The strategic plan of the Africa region was adopted overwhelmingly in Nigeria in July and one of the key priorities is to stabilize Africa where all structures like African Union, Pan African Parliament and International Parliamentary Union should be able to talk about peace in the continent," said Mahlangu.

Mahlangu thanked the Secretary General for the visit and informed him that the Parliament of South Africa was the first Parliament to assess its performance by an independent panel.

Mahlangu will visit branches in the region early next year.