The European Union is a unique economic and political union between 28 European countries that together cover much of the continent. The EU was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. The first steps were to foster economic cooperation: the idea being that countries that trade with one another become economically interdependent and so more likely to avoid conflict. The result was the European Economic Community (EEC), created in 1958, and initially increasing economic cooperation between six countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Since then, a huge single market has been created and continues to develop towards its full potential.
What began as a purely economic union has evolved into an organization spanning policy areas, from climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration. A name change from the European Economic Community (EEC) to the European Union (EU) in 1993 reflected this.
The EU is based on the rule of law: everything it does is founded on treaties, voluntarily and democratically agreed by its member countries. The EU is also governed by the principle of representative
democracy and has delivered more than half a century of peace, stability and prosperity, helped raise living standards and launched a single European currency: the euro. One of the EU’s main goals is to promote human rights both internally and around the world. Human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights: these are the core values of the EU. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the causes of peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.
The BRACE Programme targets 300,000 households in 211 Union Councils.
The households will be reached through 16,531 Community Organizations (CO), 2,685 Village Organizations (VO), 211 Local Support Organizations (LSO) at Union Council level, and 27 LSO Networks at Tehsil level, and 09 LSOs at district level.
Drawing on 33,062 CO activists/office bearers, 5,370 VO members and 422 LSO office bearers, with 323 Activists workshops/ Manager Conferences planned for 12,920 office bearers of COs/VOs/LSOs.
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