The Guest of Honour, Your Honour, Mrs. Joyce Mujuru, Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe;

The Chairperson of COMESA Ministers of Foreign Affairs;

Honourable Ministers;

Honourable Members of Parliament present;

Your Excellencies, Permanent Representatives to COMESA;

Your Excellencies, Ambassadors accredited to the Republic of Zimbabwe;

Members of the Diplomatic Corps;

Distinguished Delegates;

Members of the Press;

Ladies and Gentlemen;

It is almost eight years todate since the COMESA Authorities made the decision that COMESA Ministers of Foreign Affairs should meet at least once a year to consider modalities of addressing issues of peace and security in the region. It is therefore with pride and humility that I stand before you today to give an account of what COMESA has achieved since that decision was made.

Peace and Security situation in the COMESA Region

Looking back, one realizes that the Authority’s decision of 1999 gave birth to a structured framework that has given our Member States a forum to come together to enhance peace, security and stability in our region. This is a fundamental pre-requisite for sustainable economic integration. It is also not a secret that at the time the decision was made, almost half of the membership of COMESA was involved in armed conflict, and sadly in some cases, against one another. The lack of a forum for dialogue to address conflicts was a gap that was hindering our progress in economic integration. The reduced number of conflicts since 1999, though not exclusively because of our programme, is testimony to the fact that the much needed dialogue to prevent and resolve conflicts which we started in 1999 is bearing results. Recent important positive milestone in the peace and security situation in the region include:

i. The signing of the comprehensive peace agreement that has brought into Government of Burundi the FNL-PALIPEHUTU; ii. The cooperation arrangement involving all Member States namely DRC, Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda to address the issue of negative forces in Eastern DRC.

We should however be mindful that as we address conflicts that besieged us for the past few years, new issues of peace and security have emerged that have a negative impact on our integration efforts. Such issues include piracy of the coast of Somali and the recent conflicts in Madagascar. These are issues that need your attention and I am pleased to inform you that the Committee on Peace and Security which met two weeks ago in Grand Baie Mauritius considered these issues.

Honourable Ministers,

You may wish to note that over the past eight years, the COMESA Programme for Peace and Security has achieved a number of successes such as:

i. a significant contribution to the creation of the Continental Peace and Security Architecture that has seen the conclusion of a protocol between the African Union and the eight recognized Regional Economic Communities; ii. the establishment of a policy for electoral observation as one of the strategies for preventing conflicts in the region; iii. the establishment of various programmes such as the Trading for Peace Project that will lead to the mainstreaming of conflict prevention and peace building strategies in our trade and investment; and iv. the establishment of an effective partnership with the international community in preventing conflicts in the world as well as preventing terrorist activities that undermine our security.

Honourable Ministers;

As we take stock of what we have done, we realize that there are still some conflict situations in our region that we need to address. These are included in your status of conflicts report which you will be considering this morning and we are confident that you will give us direction to move ahead in addressing them. We can not just wish away conflicts as they are inevitable in society and as such, following your usual wise counsel, we continue to implement your decisions through various programmes and activities that aim at enhancing the structure of our programme as well as our capacity to carry out our mandate effectively. Such activities some which are on going are as follows:

Trading for Peace Project – in order to take advantage of COMESA’S comparative advantage, we continue with this programme that is geared at the utilization of our Economic Integration agenda to be a tool for peace building.

Under this programme, in January this year we launched a Trade Information Desk at Kasumbalesa on the boarder between DRC and Zambia. We have also embarked on a process of looking at gaps in our policies and laws to be addressed in order to stop the illegal exploitation of natural resources that fuel conflicts. Our ultimate aim is to assist Member States in strengthening corporate governance and corporate social responsibility that will ensure the exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of the region.

Economic Dimensions of Conflicts - It could well be irresponsible for us not to admit that as a result of the conflicts that engulfed our economies, some of our economies were virtually turned into war economies that were being used to fuel armed conflict and violence in the region. Conflict entrepreneurship was on the rise. It is in this light that as a trade based organization, we are embarking on working with our Member States which are coming out of conflicts to realize benefits for the people of the region by turning these economies into pro development economies for our people;

Civil Society/Private Sector Programme – our programme on peace and security will only succeed if there is full and effective structured participation of all stakeholders in the region. Accordingly, we continue with the programme for accrediting civil society and private sector organizations. We have done national consultations in more countries and we hope we shall soon be able to cover all member states so that we can effectively work together with non state actors. Todate we have accredited civil society and private sector organizations from member States and other applications are also before you at this meeting for consideration. Two weeks ago, the accredited civil society and private sector organizations considered the development of an Early Warning System for COMESA within the context of the African Union Peace and Security Architecture together with state actors.

Development of an Early Warning and Response Mechanism – Our capacity to prevent conflicts from escalating into violence through preventive diplomacy depends on our capacity to detect potential conflicts at the earliest opportunity. As such, and in line with your decision, we are at an advanced stage in the establishment of an Early Warning and Response Mechanism for COMESA within the African Union Continental Peace and Security Architecture. The COMESA Early Warning Mechanism along with the Early Warning Systems of other Regional Economic Communities are expected to contribute to the African Union Continental Early Warning System. This has been structured such that its components in the eight regional economic communities are based on thematic areas of comparative advantage. In recognition of our comparative advantage in matters of trade and investment, our mechanism will focus on the economic dimensions of conflicts and we trust that this will compliment the mechanisms of other building blocks of the African Union. The development of this mechanism is being funded entirely from the European Union through the African Peace Facility of the African Union;

Research into Cost of Conflicts - In line with your decision on carrying out comprehensive research on the cost of conflicts so as to inform policy on conflict prevention modalities and post conflict reconstruction strategies, we have completed a methodological study on the cost of conflicts in the COMESA Region. The study is quite essential for us to advance our programme on an informed basis;

Involvement of Parliamentarians – Over the years, you have directed us to involve parliamentarians in the search for sustainable peace, security and stability in the region. I am pleased to inform you that with our facilitating the COMESA Inter Parliamentary fora was launched in Cairo Egypt in October 2008.

Electoral Observation – the founding fathers of COMESA recognized that the success of the Economic Integration Agenda of the region is based on a number of principles which they enshrined in Article 6 of our Treaty. One of these fundamental principles is the promotion of democracy and the rule of law. At the regional level, this principle on which all our programmes and engagement have been based has taken the COMESA Integration agenda to a position where it is viewed as one of Africa’s success stories. Similarly, we also realize that since the issue of governance is one of the root causes of conflicts in our region, our endeavour to promote good governance and the rule of law shall go a long way in assisting us prevent conflicts. It is on this basis that COMESA has made a significant contribution to the success of electoral processes in our region. Since the inception of our programme and at the invitation of Member States we have deployed Electoral Observer Missions to a good number of our Member States alongside our mother body, the African Union and sister sub-regional organizations and cooperating partners. In all the Member States where we have deployed observer Missions, our Missions have been well received and to this end, I would like to express our deep gratitude to the Member States that hosted the Missions. We however need to strengthen this programme and although we are engaged in negotiations with cooperating partners to see how we can develop this programme, we definitely need financial support from membership in order to ensure ownership of the programme.

Relationship with the African Union and other RECs – I am pleased to inform you that at the beginning of this year we concluded a protocol that with other RECs, we have been negotiating with the African Union for the last five years. It may please you to know that this protocol governs not only our relationship with the African Union but other RECs as well, thereby completing the creation of a comprehensive continental peace and security architecture that will enable us pool our resources and capacities to address conflicts in the region. Through this legal framework we are now proceeding to work on a number of continental programmes like an establishment of Continental Early Warning System.

Resource Mobilization

Although Peace and Security does not have an allocation within the budget contributed by member states, we have made efforts to utilize resources availed to us to ensure ownership of programmes. To this effect I am pleased to inform you that our cooperating partners continue to support us and within the last two years, we have managed to mobilize funds for the programmes. I would therefore be failing in my duty if I didn’t acknowledge our partners who continue to support us such as the British Government through the Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian Government through the International Centre for Research and Development (IRDC), the European Union; and the United Sates Government through United States Agency for International Development (USAID). All that I can do is to urge them to continue supporting us as we are far from completing the tasks that are before us.

Honourable Ministers;

As I continue my duty as Secretary General of COMESA, I look back to the years I have worked with you as Head of Programmes and the achievements we have attained within the COMESA Programme for Peace and Security. Without your guidance, we in the Secretariat could not have taken the progarmme to where it is now. You have continued tirelessly to address issues of peace and security in our region to the point that we now have fewer conflicts than when we started. It therefore humbles me to pay tribute to you for all this noble work and urge you to continue doing the good work you are doing for the region. Special tribute is also paid to the Committee on Peace and Security that prepares for your meetings. Lastly, my gratitude goes to the Republic of Mauritius which hosted the 9th meeting of the Committee on Peace and Security towards the preparations for this meeting.

Thank You