A delegation of the German Counsellors for Development Cooperation from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region visited the SADC Secretariat headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana on 8th March 2018.
The delegation led by Mr. Benjamin Seidel, from the Southern Africa Division of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, (BMZ) included Counsellors for Development Cooperation from Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and representatives from the German government-owned development bank, (KfW) and the national metrology institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, (PTB).
In his welcome remarks to the visiting delegation, the SADC Deputy Executive Secretary responsible for Regional Integration Dr Thembinkosi Mhlongo said SADC valued the Bilateral Technical and Financial Cooperation provided by German Government to the SADC Member States and the Secretariat.
Dr Mhlongo highlighted that it was important that the support provided through the German Development Cooperation at national levels to individual SADC Member States linked to the SADC regional decisions in order to accelerate implementation of the regional priorities which are outlined in the strategic frameworks. SADC’s strategic frameworks include the revised Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2015-2020, which was approved in April 2015, and the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Road-map 2015-2063, and its Costed Implementation Action Plan.
For his part, Mr. Seidel said the objective of the visit to Botswana and the SADC Secretariat was to enable the German Counsellors for Development Cooperation from the SADC region to understand and appreciate the role and mandate of SADC and the SADC Secretariat, to ensure that the German Government’s support responded to the regional priority programmes.
SADC and Germany have had a long-standing bilateral partnership for development, which has produced substantial results in the priority areas of cooperation. Since 1985, the total volume of bilateral Technical and Financial Cooperation provided to the SADC Region exceeds €300 million.
The last Bilateral Negotiations on Development Cooperation between the SADC and the Federal Republic of Germany was held in Berlin, Germany on 27th and 28th June 2017, and with an extended 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).
The current focus of the SADC and BMZ Cooperation include:
- Regional Economic Integration (covering also Peace, Security and Good Governance)
- Transboundary Water Management
- Transboundary Natural Resource Management and Resilience to Climate Change
- Strengthening National-Regional Linkages.
