Page 11 - 40th Summit Brochure 2020

SADC DAY MESSAGE

MESSAGE BY HIS EXCELLENCY
PRESIDENT DR. JOHN POMBE JOSEPH MAGUFULI
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA AND
CHAIRPERSON OF SADC 17 AUGUST 2020

Fellow SADC Citizens,

It has been 40 years since our Organisation was established in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1980; and exactly 28 years since the trans-
formation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) into the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) in Windhoek, Namibia, in 1992. I, therefore, would like, as Chair of SADC, to extend warm greetings
and congratulations to all SADC citizens on this Special Day for our Community. In the same vein, I take the opportunity to
pay a well-deserved tribute to our Founders, who took the historic step to form this noble Organisation in order to serve as
the vanguard of our aspirations for freedom, unity and solidarity. Indeed, without their vision and solidarity, this day would
have not been possible.
It is unfortunate that today, not many of our Founders are still alive. In September last year, we lost one of the few re-
maining Founders of this Community, the Late Comrade Robert Mugabe, the former President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
Once again, on behalf of the SADC, I extend my most sincere condolences to the Government and People of the Republic of
Zimbabwe for this great loss. In this connection, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that, this year on 14 October,
Tanzania will mark 21years since the demise of another Founder of this Organisation, who was also the Father of our Nation,
the Late Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere; and on 13 April 2022, we will celebrate the centenary of his birth.
We, therefore, invite all Member States and all well-wishers to join us in remembering Mwalimu Nyerere and celebrating
his legacy. Needless to say, the late Baba wa Taifa was a true son of Africa who left a formidable legacy not only for our region
but also the African continent in general.

Fellow SADC Citizens,
SADC has come a long way since its inception in 1980. In this respect, it is heartening to note that, over the past four decades,
8 our Organisation has recorded some important milestones in different areas of cooperation, from peace and security, to infras-
tructure development, trade and industry, agriculture and food security, health, education, gender and youth empowerment.
Indeed, our region is now, more than ever, enjoying unparalleled peace and security compared to any other regions on the con-
tinent; intra-regional trade is increasing, extreme poverty is declining, income is rising and the level of our international com-
petitiveness has been enhanced.
I, therefore, take the opportunity to commend the efforts by our Founders, as well as the hard work of successive gener-
ations of leadership of our Community for achieving these important milestones. That said, however, we should always guard
against complacency since much still needs to be done in order to realise the Founders’ dream and vision.

Fellow SADC Citizens,
On the 17 August 2019, I assumed the Chairmanship of our Organisation. It has been a very exciting year and yet a very difficult
one. As you are all aware, over the past eight months, the world has been facing an acute and unprecedented health and economic
crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, I wish to take this opportunity to extend my deepest condolences to
those who have lost loved ones; and I wish a speedy recovery to those afflicted by the disease. Similarly, I would like to pay
tribute to all SADC Member States for taking appropriate measures to fight this disease.
Indeed, thanks to our combined efforts, we have been able not only to reduce the impact caused by this pandemic, but
also to be able to continue implementing our regional programmes and projects, including our theme for the past one year,
which was, “A Conducive Environment for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development, increased intra-regional
trade, and job creation”.
All Member States have continued to implement regional programmes and projects in line with the theme, and the results
have been outstanding. In addition, we have continued to implement our Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan
(RISDP), which ends in this year 2020; and also embarked on developing the new one for the next 30 years, which was an-
chored on “The SADC We Want”. This has shown how committed our region is in fulfilling its integration agenda.
In this regard, going forward, I call upon all SADC Member States to continue to work together not only in addressing
the COVID-19 impacts but also in preparing the post-pandemic situation of our Community. This, I believe, would be a
noble way to celebrate this SADC Day.
I wish you a happy, healthy and productive SADC Day.

Long live SADC.
Long live our Unity.
Long live our Solidarity.
Asanteni sana.

H.E. DR. JOHN POMBE JOSEPH MAGUFULI
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA