President Lazarus Chakwera has described his one-year Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) chairmanship as a huge success to the country and the region at large.

The Malawi Leader said various SADC meetings that have been happening during his tenure focused on pertinent issues aiming at regional integration.

“Its been a good challenge and I think Malawi has experienced the greatest number of SADC meetings at every level taking place in the nation, things to do with more integration, more industrialisation, more resilience, more security and peace,” Chakwera said.

Chakwera, who was speaking at Kamuzu International Airport this morning in Lilongwe on his departure to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to hand over the SADC Chairmanship, said Malawi has benefited a lot.

He said: “Malawi has benefited a lot because the concentration over the past year over the past year has been all of SADC coming here helping with us in various ways issues of development, infrastructure, resilience even as we together become a more integrated region.”

The President is expected to hand over the SADC Chairmanship to his DRC counterpart Félix Tshisekedi during the 42 Ordinary Summit of the Community scheduled to take place on 17 and 18 August 2022 in accordance with a statement issued by Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The statement further says whilst in DRC, the Malawi Leader will hold bilateral meetings with other SADC leaders to promote cooperation on matters of mutual interest.

Among other notable figures who saw off Chakwera was his vice Saulos Chilima.