Luanda - The 43rd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), during which Angola takes over chair for one-year tem, started Thursday (17) in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
Luanda Summit gathers the Heads of State of Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Also attending the event Vice President of Tanzania and representatives of the Heads of State and Government of the Seychelles, Mauritius and Comoros.
The Summit, taking place under the Theme: Human and Financial Capital: The Key Drivers for Sustainable Industrialisation in the SADC Region”, was preceded by a meeting of the Troika, the body in charge of peace, defence and security issues, which analysed the situation of political stability in the region.
Special attention was given to peace and security in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in the northeast Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique.
There were also other preparatory meetings of the Council of Ministers and the Standing Committee of Senior Officials of the regional organization.
The SADC Council of Ministers discussed the implementation of the operations coordination centre to deal with calamities and natural disasters in the region, gender parity and the region's candidacy strategy for the African Union and for the different agencies of the United Nations (UN) system.
In other preparatory meetings, the Standing Committee of Senior Officials found that SADC Member States contributed with USD 47 million out of the USD 129 million that it needed to fund its operations for the 2023/2024 fiscal year.
The Organization's rules stipulate that Member States must finance their operations with 70% and international partners with the remaining 30%.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an intergovernmental organization, created in 1992, and dedicated to the region's social and economic cooperation and integration, as well as cooperation on policy and security issues.
The regional organization comprises Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. VM/NIC
