Bilateral cooperation between Germany and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) extended

In July 2015, delegations from Germany and SADC met in Gaborone, Botswana, to negotiate the future of German-SADC cooperation. Both sides agreed to extend their development cooperation in the following areas:

• Regional economic integration

• Transboundary water management in the SADC region

• Peace, security and good governance

• Transboundary use and protection of natural resources and adaptation to climate change

• SADC organisational capacity development

While the areas of cooperation remain unchanged, the two delegations emphasised the need to strengthen the links between national and regional measures when carrying out programmes to support regional integration in the SADC region. In the future, therefore, a growing proportion of German technical cooperation will be used to support mechanisms and stakeholders at the Member State level.

The German delegation was led by Mr Alois Schneider, Head of Division Southern Africa at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the SADC delegation was headed by the organisation’s Executive Secretary, Dr Stergomena Tax. In order to improve the coordination between German and European support for SADC, the European Union was invited to attend the negotiations as an observer.