CEOAFRICA.COM gathered from Lilongwe that Southern African leaders will meet at a two-day summit beginning Saturday in the Malawi.

According to Tanki Mothae, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) director of politics said, “This is where the leaders meet to look into the progress made and also the change of leadership of SADC from one country to another.”

“As it is now, Mozambique is handing over to Malawi, [and] at the organ level the chairperson of the organ is now going to change from Tanzania to Namibia,” Mothae said.

Part of the agenda is the progress report on regional security and political and economic relations between member states, he said.

“They will look at the implementation of the programs and the decisions they took in Mozambique last year and also look at emerging issues. They will also look at the political and security issues in the region, and see whether or not they are moving forward in the level of implementation of the decision they took last year.” He said.

Mothae also disclosed that the leaders will discuss elections in the entire Southern African region, particularly Zimbabwe.

“They will also talk about the referendum, the elections [and] the progress in [Zimbabwe], the situation in the DRC and how far they have gone with the implementation of the peace and security and the critical framework which was signed in February, and the implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution 2098,” he said.

“They will also look at the issue in Madagascar as well as even the elections that would be held in the region in 2014,” added Mothae.

He expressed his optimism that Malawi is ready to host the two-day summit despite concerns that the government in Lilongwe was not ready.

“Malawi is very ready. We have been here now for a week and we have held meetings from the senior official levels to prepare for the summit, so Malawi is more than ready to host the summit,” he said.

Foreign ministers from the region met during the week in preparation for the heads of state summit this weekend.