Angola hosts Thursday the 43rd Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), during which the country will take over the rotating presidency of the regional organization for one year.

The Heads of State of Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as the vice-president of Tanzania, the representatives of the Heads of State and Government of Seychelles, Mauritius and Comoros, are already in Angola to attend the meeting.

The 43rd SADC Summit which will also be attended by representatives of continental and regional bodies and cooperation partners, as observers, takes place under the motto “Human and Financial Capital: Key Factors for Sustainable Industrialization in the SADC Region and was preceded by the meeting of the Troika, a body in charge of peace, defence and security which addressed the status of political stability of 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.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)