His Excellency João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of the Republic of Angola has called for innovative ways of financing key projects that will facilitate market integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to enable the citizens of the community to enjoy the benefits of regional integration. President Lourenço, made the call on 31st October, 2022 at the State House, in Luanda, Angola, when he received a courtesy call from the Executive Secretary of SADC His Excellency Mr. Elias M. Magosi.
The courtesy call is part of the SADC Executive Secretary’s programme to introduce himself to the Heads of State and Government in the region, share his ideas about a sustainable approach to expedite regional integration, achieve peace and security, as well as seek guidance and direction from the region’s leadership. The SADC Executive Secretary has so far paid courtesy calls on the Heads of State and Government for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Kingdom of Eswatini, the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republics of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
On peace and security, the President reiterated his country’s readiness to continue supporting the regional efforts in addressing the threat of terrorism in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, through the provision of air transportation to the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM), among others. President Lourenço, expressed concern at the latest developments affecting security in the eastern DRC, and in this regard, he dispatched his Minister of External Relations as his Special Envoy to engage authorities in the DRC and Rwanda in his capacity as the designated Mediator by the African Union.
For his part, the SADC Executive Secretary highlighted that, among his priorities during his tenure, was to work with Member States to eliminate obstacles to regional integration, industrialisation and improve access to markets in the region. “Our wish as a secretariat of SADC is to have all these enabling instruments that have been approved, become operational because non ratification compromises the aspiration of our region”, the SADC Executive Secretary said. H.E Magosi highlighted the SADC Regional Development Fund (SDF), which was proposed nearly a decade ago, as a self-financing and revolving mechanism intended to end reliance on external support as well as leverage private sector funding to drive the region’s development agenda. The agreement to operationalise the Fund has been signed by only nine Member States, and none of them, has yet to deposit instruments of ratification with the SADC Secretariat.
President Lourenço welcomed the SADC Executive Secretary, and assured him of the Republic of Angola’s support on his ideas and the proposed approach to expedite regional integration and industrialisation in the region. During the visit to the Republic of Angola, the SADC Executive Secretary, who was accompanied by Director of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Affairs, Mr Jorge Cardoso, and the Director for Policy, Planning and Resource Mobilisation, Dr Mubita Luwabelwa, held discussions with His Excellency Téte António, the Minister of External Relations of the Republic of Angola, and with His Excellency Domingos Custódio Vieira Lopes, the Secretary of State for International Cooperation and Angolan Communities, and was accompanied by Her Excellency Dr Beatriz Antónia Manuel Morais, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Angola to the Republic of Botswana, and Dr. Nazaré José Salvador, the SADC National Contact Point for the Republic of Angola.
