Southern African Development Community (SADC) remains committed to supporting the reconstruction process in Cabo Delgado Province, Republic of Mozambique through capacity building programmes, following wanton destruction of property and displacement of people by terrorist attacks, Senior Officer, Defence Affairs and Planning at the SADC Secretariat, Colonel Abudu Mwaya has said.
He said this when SADC multi-sectoral team engaged stakeholders while conducting a technical assessment in the Province of Cabo Delgado, Republic of Mozambique from the 14th to 19th March, 2022. The technical assessment mission was undertaken to determine capacity building initiatives for the targeted groups.
The objectives of the assessment mission were to determine the capacity building exercises needed to enable SADC to develop well-tailored programmes to be undertaken, identify the targeted groups to be capacitated and to engage with other Actors on the ground already implementing similar programmes so that SADC compliments their effort rather than re-inventing the wheel.
The team consulted a wide range of stakeholders, amongst others, government institutions such Secretary of State of Cabo Delgado, the Governor, Director of Correctional Services, Provincial Police Commander, nstituto de Formação Profissional e Estudos Laborais Alberto Cassimo (IFPELAC), Agency for Development in the North (ADIN), Provincial Director for Youth and Sports, Director for Gender, Children and Social Welfare and Mutuge District Administrator.
The technical team also met with other Non-Governmental Actors such as United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), International Organization for Migration (IOM), The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
This came against the backdrop of the Extraordinary SADC Heads of States and Government Summit held on 12th January 2022 in Lilongwe, Republic of Malawi which directed the Secretariat to engage International Cooperating Partners (ICP's) to mobilise resources in support of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM).
Subsequently the African Union Commission (AUC) and the European Union committed to support SAMIM under the Early Response Mechanism (ERM) funding facility. The training programme will be implemented between March and July 2022 in some identified districts across Cabo Delgado Province and will cover capacity building programmes for the Police, Correctional Services, Dialogue sessions with Civic Leaders and offer life skills training to the youth and women.
