By LUCY PHIRI
ZAMBIA’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Mazuba Monze says capacity to address cross border crime in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region has been greatly enhanced through the development of strategic tools such as the regional Transnational Organised Crime through the Support to Peace and Security in the SADC region (SPSS) programme.
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Ms. Monze said a number of key achievements have been made as she addressed the fifth sitting of the Programme Steering Committee of the SPSS Programme which is a joint initiative of the EU and the SADC Secretariat, under the 11th European Development Fund.
She has commended the European Union for contributing to peace and security in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit for its complementary role. “The region’s capacity to address cross border crime has also been greatly enhanced through the development of strategic tools, including the regional TOC Strategy, the SADC Protocol on the control of Firearms, Ammunition and Other Related Materials: as well as the review of existing protocols to address other emerging and evolving threats.
The programme developed a range of tools including Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on Gender Based Violence, GBV Guidelines and an Inventory Report on Sexual and Gender Based Violence Legislation, which were approved by Ministers responsible of Gender/Women’s Affairs in August 2021. The work on GBV has resulted in the development of a Model Law on GBV adopted by the SADC Parliamentary Forum and is currently being domesticated by some Member States,” Ms. Monze said.
She also notes that in the area of electoral support, the programme trained 403 long term election observers in specialised ICT-based election observation and reporting skills using special software customised to modern election assessments techniques.
She said this has immensely enhanced the capacity of the SADC Electoral Observation Missions (SEOMs) to produce evidence-based and analytical reports which inform electoral reform processes in Member States.
Ms. Monze said the programme also provided technical support to six post-election follow-up missions of the SADC Electoral Advisory Council, the results of which were submitted to the Ministerial Committee of the Organ to ensure that the recommendations of SEOMs are implemented.
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