On 2nd April 2025, His Excellency Mr. Elias M. Magosi, the Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), welcomed Dr. Fabian Ndenzako, the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Botswana and SADC, for a courtesy visit.
The visit provided an opportunity for Dr. Ndenzako to formally introduce himself to the SADC Secretariat, following his recent appointment. The meeting served as a platform to discuss strategic priorities and potential collaboration, particularly focusing on health sector initiatives. Both parties shared updates on their respective activities and programmes of mutual interest, exploring the possibility of renewing and formalising the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that had lapsed, to ensure continued cooperation.
H.E. Magosi congratulated Dr. Ndenzako on his new role and commended WHO for its extensive contributions at both national and regional levels. He expressed gratitude for WHO’s ongoing support and reaffirmed the commitment to strengthening this mutually beneficial partnership.
The Executive Secretary emphasised the significant challenges SADC Member States continue to face in the health sector, particularly in the post-COVID-19 era. He also highlighted the ongoing climate-related challenges that impede socio-economic development and exacerbate health crises in the region.
Dr. Ndenzako stressed the importance of sustained collaboration, acknowledging the achievements made since the initial MoU in 2015. He recognised the increasing prevalence of both communicable and non-communicable diseases in the SADC region and emphasised the need to enhance technical and financial support for both SADC Member States and the Secretariat.
Committing to advancing public health, Dr. Ndenzako reaffirmed WHO’s dedication to strengthening health sector mechanisms, supporting advocacy initiatives, building capacity, and developing policies. He further called for a unified regional effort to mobilise resources for disease outbreak response and sustainable health sector financing.
The meeting also discussed the health challenges faced by the SADC region, including declining donor funding, outbreaks and epidemics such as marburg virus disease, HIV/AIDS, cholera, malaria, and Mpox. Notably, progress in combating malaria was highlighted, with a reduction in malaria-related deaths from 42,867 in 2022 to 38,740 in 2023, lowering the mortality rate to 9.5 deaths per 100,000 people. However, with climate induced weather conditions the meeting noted the potential reversal of gains made towards malaria elimination given that some Member States have declared malaria outbreaks in the last few weeks. The meeting emphasised enhancing pandemic preparedness and bolstering existing capacity for local health product manufacturing in the region.
The SADC Secretariat and WHO have a longstanding history of collaboration, involving technical and financial support initiatives such as the SADC Human Resources for Health Strategy. WHO has been instrumental in supporting the region's pandemic response efforts during the COVID-19 outbreak and in addressing other communicable diseases and well as lending support to the SADC humanitarian Appeals.
