Everything is ready for Zimbabwe’s first ordinary SADC summit since 1980 when the SADC was renamed Southern African Development Community in 1992 – Zimbabwe Post

The formal agenda of the 44th SADC General Summit will officially begin tomorrow (8 August 2024) in Harare, when senior SADC officials will meet to prepare documents and decision-making issues for the SADC Council of Ministers; the Council of Ministers will also meet in Harare to set the agenda for the Summit of Heads of State and Government to be held in Harare on 17 August 2024, during which Zimbabwe will assume the Chairmanship of the SADC for the first time in 32 years since SADC became a development community in 1992.

By Prof. Jonathan Moyo

The theme of the 2024 Summit is: “Promoting Innovation to Unlock Opportunities for Sustained Economic Growth and Development towards an Industrialized Southern African Development Community”.

This is significant for Zimbabwe as a country and a state; Zimbabwe is one of the key founding members of the Southern African Development Community, which was originally established on April 1, 1980 in Lusaka, Zambia, as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC); and subsequently adopted the Lusaka Declaration, known as “Southern Africa: Towards Economic Liberation”.

SADC was established as a loose alliance of nine majority-ruled independent states in southern Africa; its goal was to coordinate development projects among themselves in order to reduce economic dependence on apartheid South Africa. The nine founding members of SADC in 1980 were Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland (now Eswatini), the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe hosted the first SADC Ordinary Summit in Harare 43 years ago on July 20, 1981; the second and last time was 35 years ago on August 25, 1989.

With the dawn of democracy in South Africa, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was renamed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 17 August 1992 in Windhoek, Namibia; previously, the regional organization’s “Declaration and Treaty” was reached and signed at a summit of Heads of State and Government, which gave SADC legal and corporate personality.

In 1992, the 10 founding members of the Southern African Development Community that signed the Declaration and Treaty in Windhoek included Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Subsequently, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa joined, making the Southern African Development Community 16 founding members; at the Southern African Development Community founding summit held on August 17, 1992, the Secretary-General representing the ANC was Cyril Ramaphosa, and the Chairman representing the Political Action Committee was Clarence Makwetu.

On September 10-11, 2001, 23 years ago, Zimbabwe hosted the Extraordinary SADC Summit, “Zimbabwe Development Task Force”. The summit was held at the invitation of President Robert Mugabe and hosted by SADC Chairperson and Malawi President Bakili Muluzi.

Preparations are underway for the first SADC summit in Zimbabwe since the SADC Coordinating Committee was renamed the Southern African Development Community in 1992.
The official agenda of the 44th SADC General Summit will officially begin tomorrow (August 8, 2024) in Harare with the SADC Senior Officials Meeting… pic.twitter.com/5gpnQuFN34

— Professor Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) August 7, 2024

The Working Group was established by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community at its ordinary session held in Malawi from 12 to 14 August 2001. The purpose of the Working Group is to work with the Government of Zimbabwe to address economic and political issues affecting Zimbabwe and to assist the country in finding solutions to the problems identified.

This means that since its inception in 1980, Zimbabwe has only hosted two SADCC summits, on 20 July 1981 and 25 August 1989. And it is noteworthy that Zimbabwe has not hosted a SADCC summit since its inception in Windhoek on 17 August 1992.

In this context, and given Zimbabwe’s ‘isolation’ – largely caused by the harmful consequences of unilateral coercive economic sanctions imposed by the West and its regime change policies – the country will host the 44th SADC General Summit on August 17, 2024, which will assume great historical significance as the formal proceedings begin tomorrow with the SADC Senior Officials Meeting.

This is a summit about Zimbabwe as a country, not about any individual or any party, or about whatever a particular politician or his or her party might like; this summit is about Zimbabwe. Specifically, it is about Zimbabwe’s place in the international community, thereby ending Zimbabwe’s isolation from the regime change merchants and their lackeys, whose machinations have brought havoc and untold suffering to the ordinary people of this country since 2001.

Of symbolic and substantive significance is that Zimbabwe has historically hosted the 44th SADC Executive Summit scheduled for August 17, 2024, following the US government’s revocation of the presidential executive order imposing unilateral and illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe on March 4, 2024, marking the end of Zimbabwe’s “isolation”.

This is a significant milestone for Zimbabwe.

It is no wonder that some of the usual advocates of regime change have once again raised their ugly heads and targeted the summit in the hope of undermining it or blurring and distorting its historical significance and depriving Zimbabwe of its rightful opportunity as a nation state, a country, whose dividends will accrue to Zimbabwe itself, as a nation and as a people.

For the avoidance of doubt, it must be noted that ending Zimbabwe’s “isolation” does not, cannot and will not mean an end to politics or political competition among Zimbabweans or their political organizations. Politics or political competition are entirely different and inevitable daily affairs that have nothing to do with summits between nations, which bring together nations; not individuals or political parties in the countries concerned.

It is therefore imperative for every Zimbabwean to do his or her part in the national interest to ensure that Zimbabwe successfully hosts the 44th SADC Executive Summit scheduled for August 17, 2024. Failure is not an option.

Zimbabwe must come first.

Domestic fighting will certainly flare up again the day after the summit; but between now and the summit, the focus should be on Zimbabwe, and peace and stability in the country must come first.

In this context, in order for the 2024 SADC Summit in Harare to be a success, everyone in the country and society, especially the government and political parties or political individuals, must not do bad things or lie!

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