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THE growing importance of SADC and its critical role in Southern Africa can be seen by the growing number of extra-ordinary consultations and summits that are now required when detailed discussions are needed to sort out regional issues that emerge between the regular summits, or to mark progress in vital areas.
This adds to the sort of work that the country of the chairperson has to do to make sure that the SADC Secretariat can confidently call on the chair to provide the required facilities at short notice.
At present the chairperson is President Mnangagwa, hence the need for Zimbabwe to swing into action.
This is obviously a routine matter now. The preparations for the regular summit earlier this year did require us to make sure the summit venue and the required physical infrastructure were in place, along with adequate accommodation of the required standards.
A fair amount of work was done in north-west Harare to meet those requirements.
But once the extra work was done, the venue was used for many other purposes of course, but with minimal organisation needed to make sure that another full SADC Summit could meet with its associated ministerial meeting without a fuss.
Under the Second Republic, Zimbabwe has eschewed temporary arrangements, preferring instead to build up permanent assets and infrastructure and making sure that any special need is met from the permanent assets.
There are several matters on the agenda for this Extraordinary Summit, including security issues and progress being made on the regional economic front.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has had a security issue in its northeast for several years which SADC has been playing a leading role in helping resolve.
While the DRC has managed to hold several elections since the resumption of a full democracy, and even managed to change governments smoothly, the persistent violence in one modest area of the country does need to end.
Almost a year ago, SADC deployed its SADC Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC) as a regional response with a one-year mandate.
This mandate expires on December 15, hence the need to assess what has been achieved, what still needs to be done and to plan and implement any SADC response. An Extraordinary Summit of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation meets just before the full Extraordinary SADC Summit and with everyone represented, firm decisions can be made over the recommendations and needs.
In this regard, President Felix Tshisekedi and others involved in the SADC mission were expected to brief their colleagues on the situation in that country last night.
There have been a couple of elections in SADC states since the main Summit this year, which have seen a new President in Botswana. President Duma Gideon Boko, who arrived in Harare yesterday and was attending his first SADC Summit, was introduced to all his regional colleagues as he took his seat.
Mozambique saw Frelimo win the Presidential and Parliamentary polls, but as sometimes happens, some opposition supporters are unwilling to accept the results, despite these being checked out by the region.
There has been violence unfortunately and there is a need for everyone in every country to be willing to accept the results of proper elections without internal malcontents and sometimes outsiders trying to stir up trouble.
SADC has now been observing all elections in the region for several years and its acceptance of results, both when incumbents win a new term and when opposition parties win with a change of Government, has been based on facts and people should be willing to accept that SADC has no ulterior motives.
No doubt, after the extraordinary issues have been ventilated and decisions taken, the leaders will be able to check on progress on what they decided at the earlier Harare Summit and make sure that everything is progressing smoothly on the economic front.
But the important point of the meetings this week is that SADC has become the effective operational unit for the region and is seen as the natural path for coordinating economic progress and sorting out security and other issues.
President Mnangagwa has in his political career seen much of this development, from the days of the Frontline States supporting the Zimbabwean liberation movements onwards, and has always made it clear that he sees regional cooperation and, most importantly, effective regional action to solve regional issues as critical.
He has continued to press this point during his year as chairperson and where necessary has spoken up in forums for both the region and for Zimbabwe as he builds up the status of SADC as well as perform the important task of chairperson for a year.
Online Reporter