The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Federal Republic of Germany held Bilateral Negotiations on Development Cooperation on 27th and 28th June 2017 in Berlin, Germany. Germany committed to extend support to SADC to the value of 39.5 million Euro for technical and financial cooperation programmes.
This amount comprises of 17.5 million Euro for Financial Cooperation and 22 million Euro for Technical Cooperation from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). This is in addition to the commitment of 8 million Euro for Financial Cooperation that was made in 2016. This brings the volume of funding available for SADC-German Technical and Financial Cooperation committed in 2016 and 2017 to a total of € 47.5 million.
SADC and BMZ also agreed to re-focus their Cooperation from the current six to four programmes by 2019, which will include (i) Regional Economic Integration (covering also Peace, Security and Good Governance); (ii) Transboundary Water Management; (iii) Transboundary Natural Resource Management and Resilience to Climate Change; and (iv) Strengthening National-Regional Linkages. Recognizing the importance of Infrastructure Development in leveraging Industrialization, € 13.5 million has been allocated to the Project Preparation and Development Facility (PPDF), a Facility that will eventually be incorporated into the SADC Development Fund (RDF) as per the SADC Development Fund Agreement, the incorporation of the BMZ resources into the RDF will be guided by the BMZ Social and Environmental Safeguards of Financial Cooperation.
Among others, SADC and BMZ recognised the importance of aligning priorities of cooperation with the region’s priorities as outlined in the Revised RISDP 2015-2020, the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO), the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap 2015-2063, the Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP), and the Regional Agricultural Investment Plan (RAIP) (2017 – 2022), which are aligned to the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the AU Agenda 2063, and the BMZ Marshall-Plan with Africa.
Both delegations emphasized the need for adherence to the principles of Subsidiarity and Additionality in the implementation of programmes and projects, in line with the Conclusions of the SADC Strategic Ministerial Retreat held in Swaziland, approved by Summit in March 2017, with the Theme “The SADC We Want”.
The SADC delegation was headed by the SADC Executive Secretary, H.E. Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax, and the delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany was headed by Mr Alois Schneider, Head of Division of Southern Africa; South Africa at BMZ. The next Bilateral Negotiations between the SADC Secretariat and the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany will be conducted in Gaborone, Botswana in 2019.
