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Mozambique was on Thursday elected chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum for the two-year term 2018-2020. Forum chairperson Verónica Macamo accepted the challenge of transforming the forum into the SADC regional parliament.
The election of the Mozambican parliament, succeeding that of Angola, took place during the 44th Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, attended by 14 member states. In addition to Mozambique, unanimously elected, the delegates to the forum elected the Kingdom of ESwatini as vice-chair of the organ.
The Chair of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, Veronica Macamo, thanked the body for the confidence it had expressed and declared that she was taking up the challenge.
“Today, at a time when we have the main challenge of transforming the Forum into the SADC Regional Parliament, we have embarked on an important stage in our journey as a parliamentary organisation, and it is with great honour that we have taken on the challenge of not going back on the path to achieve this, while we remain in the presidency,” Macamo said.
Macamo invited each country to continue working and lobbying for the transformation of the Forum, so that a positive response on this issue could be made in March 2019.
On regional integration, the newly elected chair of the SADC Parliamentary Forum reiterated her commitment to the cause and promised to work to ensure that the struggle on the political, economic and socio-cultural fronts was “successful.”
The Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum was established in 1997 as an autonomous SADC institution.
It is a regional inter-parliamentary body composed of 14 parliaments. Among them are Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Forum seeks to collate regional experience at the national level to promote best practices on the role of parliaments in regional cooperation and integration, as outlined in the SADC Treaty and the constitution of the Forum.
By José Macamo
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