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afrol News / SARDC, 16 February - By Munetsi Madakufamba. The meeting of the Southern African Development Community's Council of Ministers in Zanzibar (Tanzania) ended with a resolution to speed up the process of regional integration. Addressing journalists at the end of a three-day meeting, Lilian Patel, who is chairperson of the SADC Council of Ministers and Malawian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, said the 14 member organization has resolved to meet more frequently in order to make timely decisions and quicken the pace of regional integration. The frequency of meetings has now been doubled with the council meeting four times a year while the Summit will meet twice yearly in February and August. Two of the council meetings will be in May and November, while the other two will coincide with the Summit. The May council meeting has been provisionally set for Gaborone. This development is in line with an earlier decision taken by the SADC Summit in March 2001 within the wider framework of restructuring its institutions. The council also agreed that the remaining directorates on Social and Human Development and Special Programmes, and Infrastructure and Services will be established by August and December, respectively. The other two directorates on Industry, Trade, Finance and Investment, and Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources were put in place last year. As part of the restructuring exercise, which dominated the three-day agenda, member states are required to constitute national committees whose primary responsibility is to oversee the implementation of SADC decisions at national level. Only three countries - Malawi, Mauritius and Seychelles - have constituted these committees. Patel said the remaining countries were given a March deadline to complete this exercise. Regarding the various SADC projects currently scattered around the region, Executive Secretary Prega Ramsamy said decisions on these will await the outcome of an audit of assets and programmes which is currently under way. This should also be complete by March, he said. The other studies such as the one on job evaluations at SADC institutions will be complete in time for the Summit in August. In addition to the 18 February Mini-Donor Conference in Botswana, SADC will convene a Consultative Conference in October, also in Botswana. The consultative conference is a forum for dialogue between SADC and its international co-operating partners. - In this particular consultative conference, we shall be seeking support for the restructuring of SADC institutions, Patel said. SADC will also use the 25-26 March SADC-US forum in Washington to boost its US$ 13 million budget which it approved for the 2002-2003 financial year. Patel said while external resources are welcome, member states should strive to make the organization self-sustaining by meeting their own contributions. Council adopted a new system for membership contributions based on each member's gross domestic product. The contributions will range from between five and 20 percent of GDP. - This means that every member state will pay contributions not less than five percent with the exception of member states whose population is 500,000 or less, said Patel. Only Seychelles whose population is 80,000 will pay two percent of the budget. This formula takes effect as from the 2003 - 2004 financial year. By Munetsi Madakufamba, SARDC
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