The Chairperson (Mr. Nung-Hwan KIM) of the National Election Commission of the Republic of Korea presided over the 2012 AAEA Executive Board Meeting on July 30 in New Delhi, India. The meeting has been successfully concluded thanks to the active cooperation of Mr. V.S. Sampath, Chief Election Commissioner of the Election Commission of India (ECI). A total of 5 countries participated in this meeting: the Republic of Korea (Chair); India (Vice Chair); the Philippines, Kazakhstan, and Taiwan (members of the Executive Board).

At the meeting, the Chief Planning and Coordination Officer (Dr. Seong-Ryong LEE) of the NEC has been appointed as the Executive Secretary of the AAEA unanimously. In addition, the Commission on Elections of the Philippines wanted to host the next Executive Board Meeting and it has also been confirmed.

The AAEA Secretariat mad a report on various issues including the establishment of the AAEA Secretariat in Korea; handover of the documents; the establishment of the website of the AAEA; and accounting report of the AAEA Secretariat.

In addition, in order to expand activities for the development of democracy in the world and the consolidation of the AAEA, an in-depth discussion was made on four subjects.

The first subject was the report on the process of establishment of the SAARC Forum and the A-WEB and collecting opinions on the 2^nd Working Group Meeting for the establishment of the A-WEB. SAARC is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and it has 8 member countries: India (Chair), Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The Election Commission of India made a report on the process of the establishment of the organization.

The participants agreed that it is important to collect various opinions from a wide range of entities, because it will take a considerable time to establish the A-WEB. They also supported the vision and missions which were adopted at the 1^st Working Group Meeting for the establishment of the A-WEB.

Secondly, the participants made a discussion on the ways to expand the finance of the AAEA. The board decided to notify the record of default to its members in default in payment of membership fees; and send them a letter to urge them to pay the fees and submit a plan to pay them.

The third subject was about the ways to promote information sharing among AAEA member countries. The Executive Board reached an agreement on following items: facilitating the website of the AAEA which has been established by the AAEA Secretariat; running the election observation programs; opening the election-related laws of member nations in English to the public; holding regular seminars or forums; and conducting co-research on election-related challenges or issues.

The last subject was to find a way to establish a permanent AAEA Secretariat. The Board decided that the chair country will run the AAEA Secretariat as usual, and more discussion will be made, when the issue is raised again in the future.