The Federal Republic of Germany and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) agreed to continue their development cooperation and signed a summary record of their negotiations to the value of 44.21 million Euro for bilateral technical and financial cooperation projects. This amount comprises of 21 million Euro for Financial Cooperation and 23.21 million Euro for Technical Cooperation from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Additionally Germany confirmed a further 3.36 million Euro for Technical Cooperation from their Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). All technical cooperation will be implemented by the seven programmes from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) supporting SADC.

The agreement was reached in the intergovernmental negotiations which took place on 27h October 2011 at the SADC Secretariat Headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana. The SADC delegation was headed by the SADC Executive Secretary, Dr. Tomaz Augusto Salomão and the delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany was headed by Dr. Ingolf Dietrich, Head of the Southern Africa division at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The delegations confirmed the three priority areas for cooperation as (1) transboundary use and protection of natural resources, (2) regional economic integration and (3) transboundary water management. In addition to these priority areas, resources will also be provided to support to the area of peace, security and good governance in the SADC Region and to strengthen the reform agenda and management capacities of SADC institutions.

SADC Executive Secretary, Dr. Tomaz Augusto Salomão, and the Head of the Southern Africa division at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dr. Ingolf Dietrich, signed the agreement in the presence of the German Ambassador