Among the highlights of the Forum delegation engagements with partners was the meeting with the USAID at its headquarters in Washington DC on 8 March. The meeting was attended by a high-level delegation that included Kevin Gash, Legislative Strengthening Advisor; Kristine Herrmann-DeLuca, Head of the Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Center; Mark Billera, Deputy Director DRG Center; and Caroline Hubbard, Senior Gender Advisor, among others. During the meeting it was recalled that USAID and SADC PF had a long partnership dating back to between 2000 and 2010 when the former commissioned a 10-yeear grant to support the Forum’s role in promoting democratic elections through election observation missions by male and female MPs from both ruling and opposition political parties. The collaboration contributed to various electoral reforms including the creation of independent election management bodies, the counting of votes and declaration of results at polling centres, introduction of continuous voter registration, among other international best practices.

The USAID commented the SADC PF for the visible leadership in promoting inclusive governance, democratic accountability, rule of law and human rights in the SADC region through the development of Model Laws and other normative standards for use by MPs and stakeholders in domesticating regional and international commitments.

The two organisations agreed on the need to consolidate their partnership by focusing on strengthening parliamentary capacity in advocating for democratic drive and ensuring that democracy delivers to citizens. Other areas of possible collaboration that were identified include health service delivery, management of transboundary waters, wildlife trafficking, debt crisis, enhancing public participation and curbing corruption, with the Model Law on Public Financial Management which SADC PF adopted in 2022, being singled out as a strategic tool for use in this regard.

During the engagement SADC PF took note of the policy shift by USAID towards bilateral approaches to allocating funding, as opposed to a regional approach as was previously the case. In this regard, it was agreed that USAID would facilitate engagement between SADC PF and the USAID national offices in the region as well as with its Regional Office in Pretoria, to explore funding opportunities. The engagement was successful in updating the USAID on the trailblazing work the SADC PF has been undertaking since the laps of the previous Project and in identifying areas of mutual interest the two entities could pursue.