The third LI-supported RENEW PAC meeting in Cote d’Ivoire in February this year was a great success in bridging liberal parliamentarians between the continents of Europe and Africa. Building on the outcomes, LI Vice President and RENEW PAC Co-Chair Minister Sidi Touré, launched the Alliance des Parlementaires Libéraux d’Afrique this week.

Its inaugural training workshop “the foundations of african liberalism and strengthening parliamentary influence” took place at the headquarters of Liberal International full member RHDP and marked a key step in developing liberal idenifity with Ivorian parliamentarians and how to build strategic influence through liberal ideas across a country that has consistently demonstrated impressive economic growth under the leadership LI’s non-executive Vice President, HE President Alassane Ouattara.

“To our parliamentarians,” Vice President Touré said, “I reminded them that liberalism is not just an economic doctrine. It is … faith in the individual, in his or her ability to choose, to build, to contribute to the common good. It is in this faith that our greatest responsibility as African political leaders lies.”

Sidi Touré, who also sits on the RHDP executive board, emphasised that by supporting this event he was aiming to consolidate and develop understanding of the universal nature of liberal ideas and how they can be applied successfully in the African context.