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The Centre for Human Rights held a capacity building workshop for members of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) on 5 August 2017. The workshop, which was held at the seat of PAP in Midrand, South Africa, was themed ‘Digital Rights, Democracy and Governance in Africa: The Role of National and Regional Parliaments. The Centre for Human Rights facilitated this workshop in collaboration with its partners- Applied Law and Technology (ALT) Africa, Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Google.

The opening session was presided over by the President of PAP, His Excellency, Roger Nkodo Dang and included words of welcome by Mr Vipya Harawa, Clerk of the Pan African Parliament and Prof Frans Viljoen, Director of the Centre for Human Rights. Thereafter, several sessions were held with parliamentarians involving in depth discussions. Topics covered include: The Role of Human Rights in Democracy, Governance and Elections in Africa; Transparency and Technology Driven Elections;the Draft Guidelines on Access to Information and Elections for Africa; the International and Regional Framework on Human Rights and the Internet; the African Declaration of Internet Rights and Freedoms as a template for internet governance in Africa; and the Role of National and Regional Parliaments in Advancing Access to Information in Digital Africa.
 
This workshop is a most welcome precursor to the planned collaboration between the Centre for Human Rights and secretariat of PAP, focusing amongst other things, on capacity building for members and technical assistance to PAP on a broad range of human rights and democratic governance issues in Africa.