The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSAF) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) had a joint launch of the Regional Framework 2024-2030. The launch was held in Gaborone, Republic of Botswana on 7 January 2025.
The framework focuses on five key priority areas which are; promoting people’s health through balanced drug control, securing the safety of people from organised crime, terrorism, and violence, protecting Southern Africa’s resources and ecology from crime and corruption, safeguarding people, institutions, and the economy from corruption and illicit financial flows and enhancing the ability of criminal justice systems to uphold the rule of law, ensure equal access to justice for all and protect victims of crime.
H.E Ms. Pamela M. Chisanga, the High Commissioner of the Republic of Zambia to the Republic of Botswana highlighted that the SADC region needs to strengthen efforts to combat illicit drug trafficking as well as to ensure the safety of people from organised crime, terrorism, and violence. She noted that the region is blessed with abundant resources, flora and fauna and an amazing ecology that needs to be safeguarded jealously from plunder, crime and corruption.
H.E Chisanga regretted that SADC region is losing a lot of money annually through illicit financial flows and corruption which stifled development efforts hence the need to heighten efforts to combat corruption and illicit flows. She further emphasised on the need to enhance the ability of the criminal justice systems in the region to uphold the rule of law, ensure equal access to justice for all, and protect victims of crime.
Mr. Zia Choudhury, Resident Coordinator, United Nations in Botswana underscored UNODC’s commitment to work with SADC Member States to strengthen Africa’s response do drug control, transnational organized crime, terrorism, corruption and illicit financial flows in order to accelerate Africa’s progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and the realization of the aspirations of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
He indicated that the Framework is also complementary to the effective implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) at country level in all SADC countries.
In her remarks, Ms. Angele Makombo Ntumba, SADC Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration outlined that the Regional Framework aims to foster a safer, more resilient Southern Africa through strengthened legal and institutional frameworks, improved data collection and analysis, and enhanced regional and international cooperation. She also highlighted that the Regional Framework for Southern Africa 2024-2030 aligns with regional and international strategic instruments such as the SADC Regional Indicative Development Plan (RISDP) 2020-2030, African Union Agenda 2063 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime.
Ms. Makombo Ntumba underlined the need for the region to adopt a people-centric, inter-disciplinary and multidimensional response to crime and the need to take strategic, coordinated, and collective action against the scourge anchored on sound inter-agency cooperation at national and intergovernmental levels.
UNODC and SADC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on Crime Prevention and Drug Control in April 2011, which provides the official framework for cooperation between the two institutions on professional training and the provision of expertise and technical assistance in crime prevention and drug control initiatives across all 16 SADC Member States.
