Germany extends bilateral development cooperation with SADC

The Federal Republic of Germany and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) agreed to extend their development cooperation and signed a summary record of their negotiations to the value of 56.9 million Euro for bilateral technical and financial cooperation projects. This amount comprises of 16.4 million Euro for Technical Cooperation and 40.5 million Euro for Financial Cooperation from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). All technical cooperation will be implemented by the five GIZ programmes supporting SADC.

The agreement was reached in the intergovernmental negotiations which took place on 1st and 2nd July 2013 in Bonn, Germany. The SADC delegation was headed by the SADC Executive Secretary, Dr. Tomaz Augusto Salomão and the delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany was headed by Dr. Ingolf Dietrich, Head of the Southern Africa division at BMZ.

The delegations also re-confirmed the three priority areas for cooperation as (1) transboundary use and protection of natural resources, (2) regional economic integration and (3) transboundary water management. In addition to these priority areas, resources will also be provided to support to the area of peace, security and good governance in the SADC Region and to strengthen the reform agenda and management capacities of SADC institutions.