10 October 2014
The Southern African Development Community – Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (SADC-CNGO) organised a regional consultative meeting on the SADC Finance and Investment Protocol focusing on Investment Guidelines in the SADC region. The workshop is taking place today Friday 10th and saturday 11th of October 2014 at the Coral Strand Hotel Beau Vallon.
The opening speech was made by Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Trade and investment, Dr Steve Fanny.
The Executive Director of SADC –CNGO Boichoko Ditlhake also addressed the members present. LUNGOS CEO Mr. Steve Lalande addressed members as Seychelles is occupying the seat of Vice Presidency of SADC-CNGO.
In 2006, the SADC Heads of State and Government signed the Finance and Investment Protocol (FIP) to foster the harmonisation of financial and investment policies in Member States in line with SADC’s regional integration objectives. The FIP entered into force in 2010. In addition to the adoption of the FIP, individual SADC Member States had also long concluded Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with different countries also dealing with investment matters.
While the objectives of FIP are noble, there are no guidelines to operationalize the implementation of those objectives, leaving the protocol with glaring deficits and without the binding clauses on finance and investments. Against this background, the SADC-CNGO has developed investment guidelines to operationalize the implementation of FIP objectives. The meeting is being organized with the broad objective of discussing the draft guidelines following a meeting of the reference group in May 2014 to discuss the zero deft and also the civil society forum in July 2014 in Harare where the draft was also presented.
