Programme Director;
The UNODC Regional Representative, Mr Mandiaye Niang;
Austrian Ambassador, Dr Otto Ditz;
Director for the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Affairs, Lt. Col Mothae;
Excellencies, the Ambassadors of the SADC Region present;
Members of the Diplomatic corps;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen.
It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the South African Government and Deputy Minister Ebrahim I Ebrahim, to welcome you to South Africa for this important seminar. I particularly wish to welcome you to this special centre, the Head Office of our Department of International Relations and Cooperation. This OR Tambo Building is named after one of the greatest heroes of our liberation struggles and a Statesman who symbolised the South African Diplomacy. This icon of the South African struggle became an embodiment of the four core values of our Foreign Policy, namely, Integrity, Passion, Patriotism and Humility.
This Second SADC-UNODC Expert Group Meeting primarily focuses on practical solutions towards making our region safer from the scourges of Drugs and Crime. It therefore provides all of us with an excellent opportunity to reflect on the values that we share in common, our priorities and to channel our energies on the key challenges that face our region.
In this regard there can be no doubt that the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment and the imperative need to achieve the Millennium Development Goals remain the apex priorities for Southern African Development Community (SADC) in our quest to realise human dignity and equality. We must therefore make the achievement of the Right to Development a reality for all our people.
I am honoured to welcome this group of experts to South Africa and encourage you to produce for us key recommendations on how to mitigate the scourges of alcohol and drug abuse, illicit trafficking, human trafficking, making our roads safer for all especially in the coming festive season.
The purpose of the meeting is to develop a programme for the SADC region to make it safer from crime and drugs. This programme is central to the improvement of the lives of the people of the region.
As we all know the SADC region has adopted the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security Cooperation among the Member States of the region, which spells out areas in economic, social, political and security cooperation, where as a region we share common values and strive to develop and consolidate our efforts and activities to attain peace, security, stability and, ultimately, an integrated and sustainable economic development. These areas are critical for poverty eradication.
Pursuant to the first expert group meeting held in Gaborone, Botswana, on 18 and 19 April 2011, I am informed that the experts gathered here would intensify their efforts to reflect critically and deliberate on the challenges and scourges facing our region, as well as to propose concrete outcomes or solutions that would be packaged into a programme for the region to assist the Member States in their quest to realise peace, security, stability, and sustainable economic development.
As South Africa we envisage that the outcome of this meeting will be one that will bring about meaningful changes in the quality of life of the people of the region. This outcome should inspire all of us to move in the direction that will culminate in the endorsement by our Heads of State and Government, the SADC-UNODC Regional Programme on making the SADC region safer from the scourges of crime and drugs, and begin to consolidate the process to realise the objective for the region, which is to attain peace and stability, and be able to rid itself of the scourge of poverty through an integrated and sustainable economic development.
After the endorsement of the programme by this meeting, we are looking forward for its coordination at the SADC level in Gaborone, Botswana. This coordination should culminate in the deliberation and endorsement of the SADC-UNODC Regional Programme at the next SADC Summit in 2012.
To this end, we appreciate and welcome the partnership that we enjoy with the UNODC’s regional office for Southern Africa. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome to South Africa and the SADC region, the new United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Representative, Mr Mandiaye Niang, who assumed his duties in April 2011. Allow me also to extend sincere appreciation to the out gone UNODC Regional Representative, Dr Jonathan Lucas, who made sterling contribution in the area of combating crime and substance abuse in the region both at national and regional level.
In conclusion, I would also like to convey our sincere appreciation to the SADC Director of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, Mr Tanki Mothae, for the foresight to partner with the Office of the UNODC Southern Africa region, in the quest to combat crime and drugs in the region, as well as the social ills associated with these scourges. This partnership will enhance the objectives enunciated in the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security Cooperation in the region, some of whose elements will be reflected upon by this expert group meeting during the deliberation of the three pillars for the regional programme, namely:
- Illicit Trafficking and Organised Crime;
- Criminal Justice and Integrity; and
- Drugs and HIV and AIDS Prevention and Health.
I wish you success in your deliberations.
Thank you
