2020 SAFOD General Assembly

07 December - 08 December 2020

Virtual

The Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD) will host the next General Assembly on 7th and 8th December 2020, five years after it held its last General Assembly in November 2015. This is going to be first-ever General Assembly to be held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to SAFOD's Constitution, it is at the General Assembly, which is the highest arm of its governance structure, where the delegates representing the national affiliates of SAFOD meet once every five years to deliberate on various policy and programmatic matters of the organizations, as well as to elect new members of the SAFOD's Regional Executive Council (REC).

Besides elections of new office bearers into the REC, the delegates are expected to endorse the new five-year strategic plan that is going to guide SAFOD’s operations over the next five years (2021 – 2025); the new five-year resource mobilization strategy; the new five-year policy and stakeholder influence strategy; among other things.

Delegates are also expected to deliberate a proposal to reduce the tenure of the office-bearers of the REC from the current five years to two or three; effectively also reducing the duration in which the General Assembly itself is held to align with the proposed tenure of the REC members, and enhance more accountability.

Another key item on the tentative agenda is the endorsement of a new proposal to increase the constituency of SAFOD from the current 10 countries to all the 16 member states of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). If this motion is endorsed, it will allow SAFOD to gain more credibility especially in its efforts of advocating for inclusive policies and programs at the SADC level.