SA ready to host 46th SADC Summit

South Africa is ready to host the 46th Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit.

This as regional leaders are gathering in Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal province, to tackle key issues, from integration and infrastructure to peace and security.

Security has been tightened around the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (ICC), ahead of the summit.

It comes as the world is grappling with a number of challenges such as conflicts, geopolitical tensions and others.

The UJ Director of the Centre for Africa-China Studies, Professor David Monyae, says the region must live up to its founding principles.

“There are a number of pockets of hotspots in the region and others that are coming, and on top of it we also have new threats, your cybersecurity as we enter the 4th industrialisation.

What is key is implementation: how best to ensure that the region pulls and steps up to issues, what are the lessons,” adds Monyae.

Deputy National Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, says, “We know of the marches that are going to happen; we have a Constitution, and it provides what can be done; we will engage with organizers; our role as police is to protect everyone including the leaders of the marches.” Lesotho Foreign Affairs Minister Limpho Tau says the summit should thoroughly discuss the matter of migration.

“Even at the summit itself South Africa will actually get an opportunity to lay its perspective when it comes to migration.

So we really appreciate that and we are happy South Africa has an opportunity based on that.

We are happy that it actually tabled it.

We are happy that we can even consult and engage on the issue of migration not only as South Africa but as a region because we deemed that as a collective responsibility for us,” explains Tau.

Meanwhile, the SADC troika responsible for peace and security has met to focus on the state of security in the bloc.

VIDEO | Peace, security take centre stage ahead of 46th SADC Summit