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Declaration hand-over: A sign of the SADC we want
Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD)
August 15, 2012

Southern African Development Committee (SADC) Executive Secretary, Dr Tomaz Salomao, for the first time agreed to meet with the representative of the Peoples' Summit in the Mozambican capital Maputo, prior to the regional bloc SADC Heads of State Summit.

The meeting which facilitated the official handing over of the Declaration has become a landmark in the history of activism which can be described as the first of its kind since 2006.

In previous accounts declaration documents were never handed directly to the Executive Secretary, but this gesture reassured those who attended the peoples' summit that SADC would take their recommendations seriously and meet with the demands of the people.

Speaking on the sidelines of the hand-over ceremony Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) chairman, Joy Mabenge said that the reception of the Declaration by SADC Executive Secretary from the People's Summit is a positive milestone development that is welcome in the region.

"This takes the people's struggles to the next level. Whereas the approach may have been to keep applying pressure from outside, real policy influence comes through ensuring that the leaders get to know what our demands are.

"If the leaders do not act on what they now know we want, they will have no one to blame if the people take to revolutionary action for their voices to be heard," said Mabenge.

In his note of reassurance Dr Salomao promised to make copies for every SADC leader attending the 32nd Ordinary Summit and promised to ensure that leaders consider the issues raised by the people's summit.

Mabenge added that the People's Summit will closely monitor progress on the Declaration and continue with the dual approach from outside and towards inside the SADC Heads of State processes.

The extension of such a gesture by SADC's Executive Secretary now ensures that focal groups can continue to work hard in their respective communities for the change and development of communities in the light that the regional bloc acknowledges the significance of the work that is being done.

Commenting on the significant acts by the SADC Executive Secretary, Southern African Peoples Solidarity Network (SAPSN) focal point for Lesotho, Sofonela Shale said that the gesture is an indication that the persistence of social movements is now being recognised by the regional bloc. "Looking at the situation while reflecting on the past, this gesture indicates an opening for us to continue working as focal groups and that the SADC Ordinary Summit has recognised other voices and what we saw in Maputo is an indicator of us coming closer to our goal," said Shale.

Representatives were drawn from various focal groups including leaders of grassroots movements, community based organisations, peasant and small farmers' movements, faith based groups, labour, student, youth, and economic justice and human rights networks.

The 8th edition of the Peoples' Summit deliberated on the theme Reclaiming SADC for People's Development and Solidarity: "A peoples' SADC - Myth or reality?"

Recognising the efforts in the resolution of crisis in the region, all representatives resolved to strengthen campaigns against free trade agreements, privatisation, genetically modified products, dictatorship, land grabbing, gender based violence and all forms of discrimination.

The People's Summit pledged to show its solidarity with the struggling people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Swaziland and Zimbabwe with issues relating to human rights and multi-party democracy respectively.

In the declaration document, the peoples' summit called on SADC Heads of State to urgently dismantle patriarchal systems that aid and abate discrimination of people using arguments rooted in the backward culture and traditions. In this cause it was therefore declared that governments should immediately develop and enforce policies that protect the rights of women and children.

Governments were called upon to be transparent and accountable to the people of SADC in agreements of the extractive industries and to stop the land deals that favour foreign nationals to exploit the regional resources at the expense of nationals.

Pertaining to land grab the declaration clarified that leaders should prioritise the use of land and natural resources for the development of the poor and marginalised, while ensuring food sovereignty through agrarian reforms and establishment of seed banks.

SADC governments were called on to ensure that democratic rights are observed. The need to stop deployment and use of violence to suppress people who are advocating for free and fair elections in Swaziland was castigated. Rather governments were urged to adopt and aggressively implement lasting solutions to the political hot spots and crisis areas of the region without procrastination.

The declaration calls for an integrated approach on wealth redistribution and transformative agenda through the removal of investment incentives and tax holidays for corporations, while enhancing the capacities to collect taxes from errant corporations whose techniques for tax avoidance are now well documented.

This will be done in order to meet people's needs such access to clean water, health services, education, food and energy rather than investing in mining, fossil fuel based energy and the mega projects that benefit corporations and elites.

The declaration also stipulates that the reorientation of infrastructure development should be for the promotion of regional integration and not be a design to ship resources out of SADC to serve the local people. In so doing this will stop the reliance on export driven extractivism of natural resources and support agro-ecological faming.

SADC countries decried the issue of free movement of people within the region and urged governments to implement policies that ensure the movement of people within the region to be as free as possible.

The declaration seeks to ensure that all national SADC focal points in the region function effectively and serve the people. The Summit urged SADC governments to mobilise domestic resources and undertake innovative financing to meet budget requirements of the Abuja and Maputo declarations respectively.

On the issues pertaining to the environment it was agreed that leaders of nations that have benefited, or continue to benefit, from a development path based on high greenhouse gas emissions, need to acknowledge and repay ecological debt owed to vulnerable communities and the planet.

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