Southern Africa: SADC Strengthens Its Democratic Processes By Including NSAs and CSOs in Its Peace and Security Architecture

14 February 2023
Southern African Development Community (Gaborone)
document

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2022 made significant progress towards strengthening the democratisation process in the Region through trainings on electoral assistance and including Non-State Actors (NSAs) and civil society in its peace and security architecture.

As a result, a total of 44 NSAs were trained as Long-Term Observers, and these included representatives of civil society, parliamentarians and senior officials of Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs). This was in line with a critical provision in the revised SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (2021) on diversity in the composition of the SADC Electoral Observer Missions (SEOMs).

Member States nominated the representatives of civil society, senior officials of EMBs and parliamentarians, in addition to government officials, for the first time, to participate in SEOMs deployed to cover the Angolan and Lesotho elections held in August and October 2022 respectively. These actions sought to improve the quality of SEOM reports and increase their credibility in the future.

This was done through enhancing SADC's capacity for electoral assistance which falls under Result Area 1 of the Support to Peace and Security in the SADC region programme (SPSS), a European Union (EU) funded facility which seeks to promote peace, security, stability and democracy across the Region in line with the SADC Treaty; and to strengthen the SADC peace and security architecture in the areas of conflict prevention and resolution and public and human security, in line with the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020-2030.

The deliberate capacitation and infusion of civil society and other NSA into the work of SADC's peace and security architecture is significant given that the Ministerial Committee of the Organ and Council of Ministers approved the operationalisation of the NSA mechanism which will enable a more structured partnership with civil society, think-tanks, and research and academic institutions in respect of further strengthening SADC's developmental interventions and its peace and security architecture.

To this end, in mediation and conflict management training, 514 members of civil society in 13 countries were trained in conflict analysis and mediation skills and now form part of SADC's Mediation Roster which may be activated as appropriate to assist with national or regional interventions; as well as contribute to early warning systems.

During the year under review, the SADC Mediation, Conflict Prevention and Preventative Diplomacy Structures were fully operationalised with the appointment of five members of the Panel of Elders (PoE), and 9 members of the Mediation Reference Group (MRG), followed by their subsequent induction trainings in readiness for deployment to countries experiencing conflict, such as Eswatini, Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Members of the MRG were also actively involved in the training of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).

Work towards strengthening the Region's Infrastructure for Peace (I4P) continued in 12 countries, including support to physical I4Ps such as the Regional Counter Terrorism Centre (RCTC) in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, with the acquisition of ICT Data bank related equipment to enable its functionality.

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