Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi
This decision came out of what was billed as a SADC “High Level Consultative Meeting” held in Maputo on Monday. The meeting was also a follow-up to the summit of the SADC Defence and Security Troika, held in Gaborone on 27 November.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi called the high level meeting, and in attendance were the three members of the troika. They are its chairperson, Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, and the Presidents of South Africa and Zimbabwe, Cyril Ramaphosa and Emmerson Mnangagwa. The Deputy President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu, was also present.
None of the meeting was open to the media, and at the end Mozambican Foreign Minister Veronica Macamo read a short final statement.
It is presumed that the situation in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, where government forces are fighting a terrorist insurgency, linked to the self-styled “Islamic State”, was at the top of the agenda, but it is not specifically mentioned in the final statement.
The meeting agreed that a second extraordinary SADC summit should be held in South Africa, on a date yet to be decided, to agree on a regional strategy for acquiring and distributing vaccines against the Covid-19 respiratory disease.
The meeting also discussed regional economic cooperation, particularly the revitalisation of the Mozambican rail corridors based on the ports of Nacala, Beira and Maputo, as well as the project to build a new deep water mineral port at Techobanine, in the far south of Mozambique.
The leaders reaffirmed that the normal SADC heads of state summit and the SADC Business Forum will be held in Maputo in March 2021.
Post published in: Africa News