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FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPORT . . . African Union Sports Council Region Five general manager Stanley Mutoya is in the country for executive committee meetings being held in Harare

Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE African Union Sports Council Region Five will converge in Harare for the next 10 days for their regional meetings running from today to May 7 to deliberate on several issues concerning sport in the region.

The programme starts today with the sport for people with disabilities and women in sport committees meetings at a hotel in Harare.

The meetings are being attended by the Region Five’s 10-member countries – Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

AUSC Region Five general manager, Stanley Mutoya, said the committees will be looking at the progress that has been made in the promotion of sport for people with disabilities and women in the region. “As African Union Sports Council Region Five we have two significant meetings every year and these meetings are hosted in the countries on a rotational basis. So this is our first meeting of the year, we are here in Zimbabwe for fundamental meetings.

“Tomorrow (today) we have the other nine countries joining Zimbabwe in hosting the sport for people with disabilities meeting as well as the women in sport committee meetings.

“These two committees will look into the progress being made at regional level from all the 10 countries with regards to advancement of sport for people with disability.

“We did host a sport for people with disability conference in Malawi last year where we came up with a work plan for the region. So the countries will have to be reporting progress on the work plan.

“The women will also be reporting progress regarding the Gaborone Declaration that came out of a conference that we hosted in Botswana in 2014,” said Mutoya.

Mutoya said the two outcome in the two meetings will feed into the sport development technical commission meeting slated for tomorrow and it deals with all issues concerning the development of sport in the region.

Some of the issues they will be looking at include the podium performance programme that aims at producing athletes that can win medals at major international events including the Olympics.

“Those are critical meetings that will then feed into what we call the sport development technical commission meeting, which will be held on Friday.

“And this one looks at all the development aspects including the Games, the podium performance programme and all the other programmes for the Region,” said Mutoya.

Other meetings to be held over the next 10 days include the finance and marketing commission meetings on Saturday. They will be followed by the secretariat meeting on Monday and Tuesday in preparation for the executive committee meeting on Saturday, May 7.

The meeting on May 7 will be focusing on the progress that has been made in terms of the region’s programmes according to the 2013 to 2018 strategic plan with the podium performance programme being the topical issue.

Other issues to be dealt with include the state of preparedness of the 10 countries for this year’s AUSC Region Five Games to be held in Angola in December as well as the Olympic Games in Brazil.

“Our quadrennials coincide with the Olympic quadrennials, so this is our final year. So we will be looking as well into our 2013 to 2018 strategic plan to look at how far we have gone.

“But also countries will present their progress regarding their preparations for the seventh edition of the African Union Sports Council Region Five Games scheduled for Luanda from 9 to 18 December, 2016. As well as their state of readiness with regards to the Olympic Games teams.

“Topical of course will be the progress regarding podium performance programme, which is our flagship performance programme at regional level. So we expect these meetings to then bring out all those issues and then we make decisions that will guide us to look into our review of our strategic plan because this is now our mid-point for the 2013-2018 strategic plan,” said Mutoya.