Harare - The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, said that during Angola's mandate in SADC, the region recorded considerable progress in the energy and transport infrastructure development to support regional integration.
When speaking at the 44th SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Harare, Zimbabwe, the outgoing Chairperson of the organization, highlighted the gains in terms of shared water resources, Information and Communication Technologies and meteorology.
In view of this, he highlighted that the SADC region currently has 86% mobile network coverage, and is already very close to achieving the 95% target for 2030.
Internet access in our area is estimated at 54%, which means that more than half of the SADC population use this mean of communication.
All this, he argued, is due to the dynamics of collaboration between Member States, which have organized themselves solidly to invest in infrastructures, reduce the cost of services in this field and promote digital literacy.
With regard to energy resources, he considered it essential that states are able to guarantee access to reliable and affordable energy in the region, so that they can boost industrialization, increase productivity and create employment opportunities in the SADC region.
In this perspective, he mentioned that the population with access to electricity, between 2019 and 2023, generally remained well below projected levels, which will certainly compromise the objective of 85% recommended for the year 2030.
“In some Member States, 100% access was achieved, although there are also those where it was regrettably below 20%”, he stated.
He highlighted that the energy production capacity in most of the region's Member States has not been able to satisfy demand since 2008, except in the cases of Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania, where, in April 2024, it could be seen that there were surpluses in energy production compared to the current internal consumption of these countries.
However, the President highlighted that access to the surplus capacity of the mentioned Member States has not been possible due to the insufficient expansion of transport and transmission networks from production plants to consumption centers and the lack of interconnectors that connect all Member States. members of the region.
“Taking into account the limited access to the aforementioned resource, our region must continue to invest in energy infrastructure to increase the production, transport and distribution of electricity, diversify sources and adopt sustainable practices, crucial to ensuring a reliable energy supply, promote regional development, economic growth and the construction of a more prosperous SADC region”, appealed João Lourenço.
Staff training
Alluding to the motto “Promoting Innovation to Create Opportunities for Sustained Economic Growth and Development for an Industrialized SADC”, he said he is confident that the region will collectively harness science, technology and innovation to drive industrialization, as a decisive engine for transformation socioeconomic status of the southern zone of the continent.
He recognized that human resources are essential for the development of these value chains and sustainable industrialization.
For President João Lourenço, the region also took important steps in the last year, towards the operationalization of the SADC Transformation University, with a view to creating and maintaining human capital with the necessary skills to meet the demands of technical and technological development, necessary to industrialization efforts.
The 44th SADC Head of State and Government Summit was marked by the handover of the presidency of this body from President João Lourenço to his Zimbabwean counterpart, Emmerson Mnangagwa. IZ/ART/DOJ
