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VP Joice Mujuru

Peter Matambanadzo in VICTORIA FALLS
More than 150 local and foreign delegates have converged in Victoria Falls for the extraordinary Southern African Development Community labour conference which opens in the resort town today. Vice President Joice Mujuru is expected to officially open the conference, which started with officials meeting on Monday and runs until Friday.

The delegates include 10 African labour ministers, permanent secretaries, directors, senior labour officers, leaders of the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe and president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Also present at the conference are representatives of the Southern African Trade Union Coordination Council, the International Labour Organisation and International Organisation for Migration.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare secretary, Mr Ngoni Masoka, said the conference would consider, among other issues, the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), and the Labour Migration Action Plan.

“Over the next few days, we shall be deliberating on the agenda with a view to making recommendations for our principals,” Mr Masoka said.
He said the RISDP was a comprehensive implementation framework guiding the regional integration agenda which is designed to provide strategic direction with respect to SADC programmes, projects and activities as enshrined in the SADC Treaty of 1992.

Mr Masoka said the ultimate objective of the plan was to deepen integration in the region with a view to accelerate poverty eradication and the attainment of other economic and non-economic development goals.

“The RISDP document is a five-year regional plan that sets SADC’s development objectives and priorities. Once adopted by the (sadc) summit in August 2014, RISDP will serve as the delivery vehicle for all SADC programmes and activities,” Mr Masoka said.

The RISDP was formulated in March 2001 and approved by SADC in August 2003.
Mr Masoka said the meeting would also finalise the draft SADC Labour Migration, which seeks to address labour migration challenges in a comprehensive way and develop policies which facilitate easy movement of labour in Southern Africa.