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Wallace Ruzvidzo
Herald Reporter
This year’s SADC Summit scheduled for August will be held under the theme “Promoting Innovation to Unlock Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Growth and Development Towards an Industrialised SADC”, the regional bloc has announced.
The summit will be hosted by Zimbabwe, which will assume the chairmanship of the grouping.
Preparatory work for its successful hosting are at an advanced stage with SADC assessment missions having been in the country to check progress with all of them expressing satisfaction.
President Mnangagwa last month toured construction sites of some of the facilities to be used for the summit and expressed that he was happy with the pace at which the work was going while also pledging to ensure that the gathering will be like no other.
“This is why we are working 24 hours a day to make sure we host SADC here in an environment never seen before,” said the President.
SADC’s executive secretary Mr Elias Magosi who was in the country recently said this year’s summit would be unique as the region’s Heads of State would be interacting with citizens and acquainting themselves with some of the mega projects in the country.
He said it was an idea he had already proposed to President Mnangagwa, who in turn said he would push it to his fellow Heads of State.
It will be a first of its kind summit as it will be the first time visiting presidents interact with citizens, as opposed to them just being seen on television and other forms of media.
“We also want to make sure that there is bigger visibility for Heads of State when they come here into a country like Zimbabwe. They should not just come in and out, they should actually be here for some time and meet with the citizens, so he bought into the idea and said he will engage with his colleagues and make sure that they do that.
“They are not often seen physically; they are often seen on television and so forth, so, it is important that people appreciate that these (the leaders) are humans as well. They can appreciate projects that are happening around the member states,” said Mr Magosi.
In 2014, the regional bloc gave a thumbs up to the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap 2015-2063.
The Strategy is premised on the conviction that regional integration will promote industrialisation.
It recognises that industrial policy and implementation will be largely undertaken at the national level and that its success depends on forging a compact strategy for industry consisting of the government, the private sector, civil society, labour and the development partners.
The SADC Industrialisation Strategy and roadmap seeks to engender a major economic and technological transformation at the national and regional levels within the context of deeper regional integration.
It also aims at accelerating the growth momentum and enhancing the comparative and competitive advantage of the economies of the region.
In the case of Zimbabwe, the country has been on a massive industrialisation drive since the coming in of the Second Republic. Massive industrialisation projects are being rolled out including mines and agricultural activities across the country as President Mnangagwa continues to emphasise its need pursuant to the attainment of an upper-middle-class economy by 2030.
As part of its industrialisation drive the Second Republic has also spearheaded various rural industrialisation projects to ensure these areas also come to the fore in Zimbabwe’s modernisation initiatives.
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