Kagame attends the DR Congo crisis EAC-SADC conference
President Paul Kagame virtually attended a meeting of the heads of state and government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) on Wednesday, August 13, to assess the state of peace efforts in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The EAC and SADC chairmen, William Ruto of Kenya and Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, co-chaired the summit, which was also attended by vice presidents Jessica Alupo of Uganda and Prosper Bazombanza of Burundi, as well as presidents Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia and Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The purpose of Wednesday’s summit, according to the EAC, is to approve the conclusions and suggestions from the Co-Chairs’ meeting with the Panel of Facilitators, which was held in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 1.
In addition, the leaders will examine the nomination of Mokgweetsi Masisi, the president of Botswana, to the Panel of Facilitators and explore unified terms of reference and structure for the African Union (AU) Mediator and the EAC-SADC Panel of Facilitators.
This meeting builds on a resolution adopted on August 1st in Nairobi, Kenya, when the AU Panel of Facilitators and the co-chairs of the Joint EAC–SADC Summit decided to combine their peace efforts with the AU’s in order to handle the situation in eastern DR Congo in a more coordinated manner.
Under this arrangement, the AU and the Joint EAC–SADC Summit will receive joint reports from the EAC-SADC Panel of Facilitators.
Under the previous agreement, the technical secretariats of the SADC, EAC, and AU Commission were to be combined into a single Joint Secretariat, headed by the AU Commission and headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
