Greece in African Union

, Ethiopia. Among the objectives of the AU's leading institutions are:

to accelerate the political and socio-economic integration of the continent;
to promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples;
to achieve peace and security in Africa; and
to promote democratic institutions, good governance and human rights. The African Union is made up of both political and administrative bodies. The highest decision-making organ is the Assembly of the African Union, made up of all the heads of state or government of member states of the AU. The Assembly is chaired by Bingu wa Mutharika, leader of Malawi, elected at the tenth ordinary meeting of the Assembly in January 2009. The AU also has a representative body, the Pan African Parliament, which consists of 265 members elected by the national parliaments of the AU member states. Its president is Idriss Ndele Moussa. Other political institutions of the AU include

the Executive Council, made up of foreign ministers, which prepares decisions for the Assembly;
the Permanent Representatives Committee, made up of the ambassadors to Addis Ababa of AU member states; and
the Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), a civil society consultative body. The AU Commission, the secretariat to the political structures, is chaired by Jean Ping of Gabon. The main administrative capital of the African Union is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the African Union Commission is headquartered. Other AU structures are hosted by different member states:

the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights is based in Banjul, The Gambia; and
the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and APRM Secretariats and the Pan-African Parliament are in Midrand, South Africa. The AU covers the entire continent except for the Îles Éparses, Réunion, Mayotte, and Morocco, because that state opposes the membership of Western Sahara as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. However, Morocco has a special status within the AU and benefits from the services available to all AU states from the institutions of the AU, such as the African Development Bank. Moroccan delegates also participate at important AU functions, and negotiations continue to try to resolve the conflict with the Polisario Front in Tindouf, Algeria and the parts of Western Sahara. The AU's first military intervention in a member state was the May 2003 deployment of a peacekeeping force of soldiers from South Africa, Ethiopia, and Mozambique to Burundi to oversee the implementation of the various agreements. AU troops were also deployed in Sudan for peacekeeping in the Darfur conflict, before the mission was handed over to the United Nations on 1 January 2008 UNAMID. The AU has also sent a peacekeeping mission to Somalia, of which the peacekeeping troops are from Uganda and Burundi. The AU has adopted a number of important new documents establishing norms at continental level, to supplement those already in force when it was created. These include the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003), the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (2007), the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its associated Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance

Members

The following countries are members of the African Union:

Algeria
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo
Côte d'Ivoire
Djibouti
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
São Tomé and Príncipe
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Zambia
Zimbabwe