SADC presents 'Success Stories'
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has launched a new publication featuring notable achievements of regional integration. The “SADC Success Stories” were presented by SADC’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax, and the German ambassador to Botswana, Rolf Ulrich, on the eve of the SADC Summit in Gaborone on 20th of August 2015.
“The SADC Success Stories publication is intended to increase the public visibility of SADC, and to showcase some of the achievements and benefits of regional integration in formed by the reality that SADC is not sufficiently well understood in terms of its mandate, programmes, activities and impact,” Dr. Tax told journalists. She also praised the document in her introductory remarks to the SADC Summit.
“The launch of the Success Stories publication is testimony that SADC matters,” Ambassador Ulrich added during the press conference. “It shows that SADC matters to the people.” He highlighted that Germany had supported SADC for two decades and remained committed to working with the region to ensure the success of its regional integration agenda.
The Success Stories include achievements in the fields of trade, transport, finance, tourism, energy, disaster management, water resources, peacekeeping training and political cooperation. The publication illustrates the link between regional and national decisions as well as the benefits for citizens and businesses in SADC Member States.
One of the stories details how a one-stop border post between Zambia and Zimbabwe cut waiting times for commercial trucks from six days to less than 30 hours. As each day at the border costs US$300 per truck, this results in significant reductions in transport costs. SADC now plans to build on the success of this initiative by creating additional one-stop border posts between Member States.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) funded the brochure through its programme for Strengthening the Reform Agenda and Management Structures of SADC Institutions, a programme implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The brochure was produced by GIZ and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC).
