THE 45th Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit is underway in the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, with the meeting of senior officials taking centre stage.
The senior officials from the region convened this Wednesday to deliberate on key regional priorities and developments.
The meeting saw the outgoing Chairperson of the SADC Standing Committee of Senior Officials, Ambassador Albert Chimbindi, officially handing over the reins to his counterpart and incoming chairperson, Mr Eric Ratsimbazafy.
“Our meeting takes place at a time when our region continues to pursue deeper regional integration and collective and inclusive development, in line with the shared vision of a peaceful, industrialised, and prosperous SADC. As we gather here over the coming days, we do so with a collective resolve to reflect on our progress, renew our commitments, identify our challenges and reimagine our strategies to deliver tangible benefits to the citizens of our community,” Ambassador Chimbindi said.
“It is not the number of meetings we hold, or the number and length of our outcome documents, or the flamboyance of language that matters. Instead, it is the positive impact on the people, which should be the yardstick of our success. It has been an honour to chair the SADC Standing Committee of Senior Officials for the past year.
“Let me extend my profound appreciation to all of you, member states, for the unwavering support you rendered to Zimbabwe during the tenure of our Chairship of SADC. Your tireless efforts, support and assistance cannot go unnoticed as they were instrumental in shaping the future of our region. We clearly demonstrated that through unity of purpose, we can and have been able to achieve much more. Divided, we can only falter and stutter.”
He stressed the need for the region to utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) in advancing the bloc’s socio-economic growth.
“Impediments to our development agenda posed challenges to the realisation of the SADC we all want. The SADC we want is a community where our people live happy and fulfilling lives, a region that presents opportunities for our youth to grow and innovate for the development of the region.
“In this era of the internet where artificial intelligence is the game changer, we must embrace it for the development of our region. SADC has a comparative demographic advantage of a young population, coupled with our abundant natural resources over other regions. We must leverage on these two critical resources to take our region to greater heights.”
Assuming the role, Mr. Ratsimbazafy conveyed his sincere gratitude to Ambassador Chimbindi for his visionary leadership and steadfast commitment towards advancing the implementation of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020-2030.
The SADC senior officials engagement marks the start of meetings leading up to the 45th Heads of State and Government Summit, which will see Zimbabwe handing over chairmanship of the bloc to Madagascar on August 17.
