Your Majesty,
Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government;
Chairpersons of SADC and ICGLR;
Your Excellencies, Ministers and Deputy Ministers;
Executive Secretaries of SADC and the ICGLR;
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
May I take this opportunity to welcome you and your delegations to the Joint Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) Summit.
I am most grateful that you could avail yourselves for this important meeting, as we attempt to find sustainable and enduring solutions to the challenges facing the SADC and Great Lakes regions.
I am confident that in our deliberations today, we shall be guided and united by a strong sense of purpose and pragmatism, in the spirit of advancing our regional development agenda.
As you are aware, peace, security and stability are integral components of this agenda.
Your Majesty and Your Excellencies,
As we continue to exchange ideas, and to enter into agreements that should serve as instruments for regional and multilateral co-operation, we should also commit ourselves to do everything possible to ensure their implementation.
This SADC-ICGLR Summit should therefore enjoin our two regions to continue to do everything we can to act together in partnership, to respond to the urgent challenges of restoring peace and stability, and accelerating economic development.
Continued political instability in the Great Lakes denies the people of the region the ability to fully exploit their economic potential, despite the region's large reserves of minerals, and has resulted in untold human suffering.
Important initiatives are being undertaken under the auspices of the ICGLR, and buttressed by the United Nations Framework for Peace and Security in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes, to reach a political resolution to the fundamental causes of instability in the region.
Additionally, the UN Intervention Brigade has now been fully deployed; with a mandate to restore stability to the East of the DRC.
South Africa is always ready to work with the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), SADC and the ICGLR in addressing such important challenges as national reconciliation, post conflict reconstruction and development, security sector reform, disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration, as well as institutional capacity building and economic development.
These can only be achieved if the necessary remedies are in place, to effectively deal with the continued threat posed by all insurgents groups operating within the territory of the DRC.
In this regard, as a region and also in partnership with the ICGLR, we continue to strive for stability and security with the sole aim of achieving balanced and equitable regional integration, as a fundamental condition for sustainable development.
We must aim to free the people of these sister regions from the scourges of unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment.
We therefore meet today to receive and consider progress with the implementation of the UN Peace Framework for the DRC and the region.
Your Majesty and Your Excellencies,
Let us work to ensure that our collective efforts truly assist and support the peace efforts in the Great Lakes.
Let us recognise the responsibility we carry, as regional leaders, and ensure that the decisions we take today in this Summit will impact positively on our regional development programmes towards creating a better Africa and a better World.
Your Majesty and Your Excellencies, we clearly have an extensive agenda to deal with.
Let us accord this work our full and dedicated attention to ensure an outcome that is satisfactory to us all.
With these remarks, once again welcome you all to the Republic of South Africa and I trust that our deliberations will be fruitful and most constructive.
I thank you.
