Africa-Press – Angola. The Standing Committee of Senior Officials of SADC carried out, this Wednesday, in Luanda, the analysis of the financing of priority projects of the regional organization for the financial year of 2023-2024.
The spokesperson for the SADC Summit, Jorge Cardoso, noted that of the US$129 million forecast for this economic and financial year, resources from member states amount to around US$82 million, equivalent to 67 percent of the budget. designed.
According to the spokesperson for the SADC Summit, which will take place on the 17th of this month, in the Angolan capital, international cooperation partners will contribute the remaining 33 percent.
He made it known that most of the projects have to do with financing feasibility studies, “especially in the soft part of their concession” and others funded by UN agencies in the areas of water and sanitation and mitigation of communicable diseases in the region.
He indicated that the participants also encouraged the SADC Secretariat to continue with the process of mobilizing resources that will allow facilitating priority projects within the framework of the Strategic Indicative Plan for Regional Development.
They also encouraged the Secretariat to diversify the list of international cooperation partners, beyond the traditional ones.
Jorge Cardoso recalled that SADC’s 1st cooperation partner is the EU, via the European Development Fund, which has already concluded its legal period in 2021 “and, at this moment, we have a new cooperation framework with the Union known as Global Europe”.
Still regarding contributions, he informed that no Member State should finance their contributions above 20 percent, because in the region there are countries with a great economic capacity, such as South Africa), and others with smaller economies such as the Kingdom of Lesotho and Eswatini.
SADC Parliamentary Forum
Jorge Cardoso also announced that the meeting also reviewed aspects related to the transformation of the SADC Parliamentary Forum into a Regional Parliament.
According to the official, this process was dealt with in detail at the SADC Summit that took place in Kinshasa (DRC), in which the Member States actually agreed to establish this Parliament at the regional level.
‘Therefore, the process inherent to the operationalization is underway with the development of a protocol that will regulate the functioning of this Parliament”, he maintained.
He considered the measure of great reach for the SADC region “because this will allow national deputies to interact at the regional level defending the interests of their citizens and make proposals for model laws that could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our model of regional integration “.
The Standing Committee of Senior Officials of the organization also reviewed the application processes of the SADC region at the level of the international system.
The senior MIREX official considers this agenda of great interest, as several member states present candidates for the United Nations system, as is the case of Zimbabwe and Mauritius, which are running for non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. United.
Angola will receive the testimony to lead the organization of SADC, until August 2024, during the Summit of Heads of State and Government, which takes place in the Angolan capital, replacing the DRC.
Headquartered in Gaborone (Botswana), one of SADC’s major objectives is to make the region industrialized by 2063, as set out in the organization’s Strategy and Roadmap, approved by the Heads of State and Government, in April 2015, for the period 2015-2063.
Created in August 1992, SADC is made up of Angola, South Africa Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Swatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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