The Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC countries held its virtual – 22nd Annual General Conference on the 3rd December 2020.

 The AGC was attended by Election Management Bodies (EMBs) in the SADC region (Chairpersons, Commissioners, CEOs and senior Officials of EMBs).

In line with the AGC theme on Electoral Justice in the SADC region, the opening session of the AGC was marked by a keynote address on “Lessons Learnt and Perspectives on Electoral Justice”. The presentation made by Prof Adebayo Olthoshi of International IDEA, provided an opportunity for EMBs to benefit from insights on cross cutting issues in electoral justice in the SADC region.

 Given the uniqueness of the virtual conference which was modified from the generic AGC programme, the 22nd AGC, among others, received and considered reports from the President and adopted recommendations from the Executive Committee. Amongst the Resolutions made was the need for the Forum to strengthen its resource mobilization initiatives and to have more deliberations on issues of the Forum’s sustainability.

The 22nd AGC also highlighted the challenges occasioned by the Covidl9 pandemic which has greatly impacted, modified and mutated how the Forum conduct its business. The AGC considered the need to review its decisions on the Covid19 response.

The 22nd AGC was an elective conference which formally announced the ECF-SADC leadership for the 2020-2022 as follows: President: IEC -Botswana Vice President: CNE – Mozambique Executive Committee members: EC Zambia (Chairperson) ZEC -Zimbabwe (Vice Chairperson) NEC Tanzania, MEC — Malawi, EC Seychelles, CNE-Angola, EC Mauritius.