Africa-Press – Botswana. Visiting Swiss Confederation President Alain Berset has hailed SADC as an important regional bloc worth associating with.
President Berset, who paid a courtesy call on the organisation’s executive secretary, Mr Ellias Magosi on Tuesday, recognised SADC’s ideals of economic development, the rule of law, democracy, peace and security and general improvement of Southern African people’s quality of life.
It was therefore imperative for Switzerland to forge partnerships with SADC to support its development and economic activities.
Switzerland, he said, was also host to many multilateral organisations that could benefit the bloc.“In a complicated world such as the one we live in, stronger regional economic communities are very important. We need to grow our bilateral ties with SADC member states to bring SADC closer to Swiss Confederation, we have not been doing enough in that aspect,” he said.
Saying SADC’s peace keeping mission, mediation activities and security maintenance efforts were impressive, Mr Berset said they were critical to strengthening the ideals of solving Africa’s problems the African way.
“We are committed to finding solutions to some of the problems in the SADC region,” he said.
For his part, Mr Magosi said it was vital for SADC to present its priorities to the Swiss Confederation as there was a lot that the country could offer the bloc in terms of reinforcing peace and security.
“We cannot achieve economic development and regional integration in an unsafe and unstable environment,” he stated.
Mr Magosi said SADC was exploring possibilities of collaborating with the Swiss Confederation to drive its priorities including industrialisation agenda as well as climate change and economic issues.“The Swiss are strong on issues of climate change, which we can learn from,” he said.
Another focus area, he said, was the development of a decent work policy critical to the creation of a productive labour force.
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