DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 26 (AFP) - A two-day summit of southern African leaders closed in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday with heads of state pledging to fight AIDS in their poverty-stricken region.
"In the past few days of our meeting we have made important decisions that impact on the lives of our people," Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa told some 1,500 delegates to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting.
He said the countries' chief concerns were the AIDS pandemic and the alleviation of poverty, noting: "About 60 million of our people, or 30 percent of our population, live below the internationally recognised poverty line."
Mkapa said the leaders had approved an HIV/AIDS framework and programme of action for 2003 to 2007.
"It offers us a measurable target against which our efforts, actions and successes -- or lack thereof -- will be measured," he said, without elaborating on the target.
"It has provided us with a challenge we cannot fail to meet in the interests of our people who are being daily decimated by the deadly pandemic," Mkapa said.
All the leaders of the 14-member SADC attended the closing, except Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his counterpart from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila, who had both left earlier.
Created in 1980 by nine founding members, SADC was originally formed to aid economic development and to respond to basic needs, but has extended its remit to include security and defence issues.
Its members are Angola, Botswana, the DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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