President Rupiah Banda in Namibia for SADC Summit

Mathews Mudenda

21 May 2011

Windhoek — PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda was yesterday among SADC Heads of State and Government who attended the opening session of the on-going SADC extraordinary summit in Windhoek, Namibia.

The meeting is the first SADC summit devoted to regional economic development.

President Banda who arrived in the Capital Windhoek on Thursday forthe SADC extraordinary summit, later held a closed door meeting withhis Namibian counterpart President Hefikepunye Pohamba which lastedfor over 30 minutes at Hotel Safari.

President Pohamba is the current Chairperson of SADC, while PresidentBanda is the Chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence andSecurity Cooperation.

The President was met by Namibian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs,Pea Mushelenga, Commerce Minister Felix Mutati, Zambian HighCommissioners to Namibia and Botswana, General Isaac Chisuzi andMarina Nsingo respectively.

Others at hand to receive the President were several Namibiangovernment officials and scores of Zambians resident in Namibia.

The President was later driven to Hotel Safari where he will lodge forthe rest of the summit.

President Banda is accompanied to the summit by Foreign AffairsMinister Kabinga Pande, Commerce Minister Felix Mutati, Defense DeputyMinister Joseph Mulyata and other senior government officials who werein the advance part which arrived here on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, President Banda was yesterday expected to present reportsto the closed door session of the Heads of State and Government on theon-going mediation efforts in Zimbabwe and Madagascar.

President Banda is the chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defenceand Security Cooperation of SADC.

Other leaders who attended the summit include Zimbabwe’s RobertMugabe, Amando Guebuza of Mozambique, Joseph Kabila of DRC, JakayaKikwete of Tanzania, Ian Karma of Botswana and host HefikepunyePohamba.

And speaking during the opening ceremony of the extraordinary summit,Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairperson HefikepunyePohamba called on SADC member countries to take an active role inglobal economic affairs.

Mr Pohamba said this was important because it would be easy for theregion to chart a clear course of the global economy with certainty.

Mr Phamba said SADC could not afford to be a passive bystander in theprocess of global economic transformation.

He said there was need for SADC member countries to actively helpshape the global economic landscape and create better conditions forthe citizens.

“We share a common vision for a region that is more closely integratedin line with our commitments as set out in the Regional IndicativeStrategic Development Plan (RISDP), the Strategic Indicative Plan forthe Organ (SIPO) and the various protocols that our Regionalorganization has adopted over the years in order to pursue ourintegration agenda more effectively,” he said.

Mr Pohamba said the summit which had been devoted to the economicdevelopment of the region should be seen in the context of leaders’recognition of the need for active participation in the globaleconomy.

The SADC chair noted that over the years, substantial resources hadbeen spent while many meetings on economic issues had also been held.

Mr Pohamba noted that as the region looked at the efforts it had madein the last thirty years and to the future, there was need for leadersto remain focused on the fact that whatever they did was aimed atachieving the ultimate goal of improving the living conditions ofcitizens in the SADC region.

He noted that millions of people in the region had continued to livein abject poverty and suffer from hunger, preventable diseases, lackof access to quality education, health care and other basic amenities.

He said in order to address such challenges and other developmentalgaps, there was need for leaders to take actionable decisions at theon-going summit.

He cited lack of adequate resources from the region and ineffectiveimplementation of decisions taken by the regional body as some of thepersistence challenges.

Mr Pohamba said it was critical that the decisions taken by theleaders in SADC were seriously and effectively implemented for theregion to move forward.

He called on SADC leaders to mobilise domestic resources and marshalthe necessary political will in order to give concrete meaning to theregional integration agenda.

President Pohamba noted that while foreign funding by developmentpartners had been generous and welcome, dependence on it alone couldconstrain development efforts.

Meanwhile, Mr Pohamba has announced that South Africa would in Junethis year hold a tripartite summit to be attended by Heads of Stateand Government of SADC, COMESA and the Eastern African Community whichwould focus on the finalisation of the process of establishing theenvisaged tripartite free trade area.

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