The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) will on Wednesday hold an Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government to discuss regional integration and cooperation.
In a statement posted on www.sadc.int, the regional bloc said Mozambique President Felipe Nyusi will lead other heads of State in discussing the security situation in Mozambique and the bloc’s response to emerging health crises at the summit in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo.
Reads part of the statement: “The summit will, among the key issues, discuss the regional response and support to the Republic of Mozambique in addressing terrorism, regional food and nutrition security, gender and development, and progress in the regional response to HIV and Aids and Covid-19 pandemic.
“The summit will review progress made in the implementation of the theme of the 40th Sadc Summit; Sadc: 40 Years Building Peace and Security, and Promoting Development and Resilience in the Face of Global Challenges, which was endorsed by the Sadc Summit in August, 2020.”
Nyusi is also expected to launch three books—40 Years of Sadc: Enhancing Regional Cooperation and Integration, Volume 2 of Mozambique Sadc Success Stories, and the Hashim Mbita (Southern African Liberation Struggles) to commemorate Sadc’s 40th anniversary.
Sadc also said it will fly the regional bloc’s flag and those of its member States at half-mast to honour independent Zambia’s first president Kenneth Kaunda, who died last Thursday.
Maputo also hosted the Sadc Double Troika Summit of the Heads of State and Government on May 27 2021 which was opened by President Lazarus Chakwera as the in-coming Sadc chairperson. It was at this summit that the heads of State agreed to convene another extraordinary summit by June 20.
During the meeting last month, which was a continuation of the bloc’s efforts to address Mozambique’s terrorism that has killed hundreds of people and displaced hundreds of thousands others since 2017, the Sadc leaders agreed to support that country’s military in its fight against an Islamist insurgency in northern Cabo Delgado Province.
The Double Troika Summit followed recommendations from a Sadc technical assessment team who in April recommended deployment of a 3 000-strong regional force to help Mozambique “combat and neutralise” the insurgents and recapture territory they had taken.
Nyusi told reporters after the summit: “We adopted measures aiming to eliminate by its roots the terrorist actions through reinforcing the operational capacity of [Mozambique’s] defence and security forces.”
Nyusi has previously expressed reluctance to accept the military intervention, opting for bilateral aid and insisting that Mozambique should handle certain aspects of the response alone for reasons of sovereignty.
The Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation is a Sadc institution whose overall objective is to promote peace and security in the region in line with Article 2 of the Sadc Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.
