Page 6 - 41st Summit Brochure

WELCOME MESSAGE

REPUBLIC OF MALAWI
THE PRESIDENT

BY HIS EXCELLENCY PRESIDENT DR. LAZARUS MCCARTHY CHAKWERA,
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MALAWI AND IN-COMING CHAIRPERSON OF SADC
ON THE OCCASION OF THE
41 ORDINARY SUMMIT OF THE HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT
ST

Welcome to Malawi,“The Warm Heart of Africa”for the 41st SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government.
With a focus on the theme, Bolstering Productive Capacities in the Face of COVID-19 Pandemic f or Inclusive,
Sustainable, Economic and Industrial Transformation, this promises to be a seminal Summit. On behalf of the
Government and People of the Republic of Malawi, I ask you to make yourself at home.
The Summit comes at a critical time when the region is still in the throes of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Across SADC, the pandemic has either slowed down or halted economic activity, leading to a sharp decline in
economic growth, huge job losses, and a total wipe-out of gains in priority sectors of tourism, manufacturing, and
aviation.
Furthermore, the pandemic has disrupted the social life of our citizens and disturbed social services like
education. If we are going to prevent a deepening of inequalities within our region or an escalation of our people’s
4 suffering, then the socio-economic measures we take as Member States must be swift and serious. We simply
cannot afford to allow four decades’ worth of gains towards regional integration to be reversed.
I must therefore applaud Member States for continuing to implement rigorous measures, both at national
and regional levels, aimed at halting the spread of the virus and mitigating its impact. Member States have done
well to invest in public health systems and social protection programmes that cushion citizens against the loss
of income and livelihoods caused by lockdown measures. We can and must build on this foundation to further
our region’s recovery.
Apart from abating the spread of the virus through the continuation of a region-wide vaccination
campaign free of supply constraints, we need a robust economic recovery plan. That plan must have deliberate
policy interventions to facilitate a quick rebound, assist small economies to build their capacities for production
and competition in the context of intra-regional trade.
In short, existing instruments like the SADC Free Trade Area (FTA) must be maximized. For this to
happen, the well-equipped economies in the region should enable the whole region to accrue a fair share of
trade in such large markets as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Our active participation in
the AfCFTA is a huge step forward for Africa, for it shows our resolve to lift millions of our people out of poverty.
Therefore, the challenge before us at this Summit is to inspire Africans with pragmatic solutions for ending
their sufferings.
We must be resolute in our unity on trade, following in the footsteps of the Founders of SADC, who
believed that the success of this region depends on the ability of Member States to build competitive advantage
in trade. That trade must begin within the region, and the promotion thereof must be fully supported at all
levels.
Even so, promoting trade is not enough by itself. It must be backed by industrialization. It is therefore
paramount for Member States to diversify their industrial base, promote value addition, and build necessary
infrastructure to accelerate our integration agenda. The key driver to these processes remains the full implementation
of the Regional Indicative Development Plan (RISDP), the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap, and other
pertinent blueprints designed to ensure sustainable and equitable economic growth.