President Paul Kagame on Wednesday, August 13, attended virtually a summit of Heads of State and Government of the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to review progress of peace efforts for the situation in eastern DR Congo. ALSO READ: DR Congo crisis: EAC-SADC peace efforts merged with AU's The summit, co-chaired by Kenyan President William Ruto and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the respective chairpersons of the EAC and SADC, was also attended by Presidents Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo, as well as Vice Presidents Jessica Alupo of Uganda and Prosper Bazombanza of Burundi, among other leaders from both regions. According to the EAC, Wednesday's summit aims to adopt outcomes and recommendations from the Co-Chairs’ meeting with the Panel of Facilitators, which took place on August 1 in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The leaders will also consider consolidated terms of reference and structure for the African Union (AU) Mediator and the EAC-SADC Panel of Facilitators, as well as review the appointment of Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi to the Panel of Facilitators. ALSO READ: Three more facilitators named in effort to pacify DR Congo crisis The meeting builds on a resolution taken on August 1, when the co-chairs of the Joint EAC–SADC Summit and the AU Panel of Facilitators agreed in Nairobi, Kenya to merge their peace efforts with those of the AU, creating a more coordinated approach to addressing the crisis in eastern DR Congo. Under this framework, the EAC-SADC Panel of Facilitators will jointly report to both the Joint EAC–SADC Summit and the AU. The earlier agreement also provided for the merger of the technical secretariats of the AU Commission, EAC, and SADC into a single Joint Secretariat, to be led by the AU Commission and based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
