Southern African Peoples’ Solidarity Network (SAPSN) ANNOUNCING THE 2nd SADC PEOPLES’S SUMMIT TO BE HELD IN LUSAKA –Zambia Dates : August 15th and 16th 2007 Following the successful hosting of the SADC Peoples’ Summit in Maseru in August 2006 - the Southern African Peoples’ Solidarity Network in collaboration with network members and other social movements and people based organizations in the SADC region will be holding a “People’s Summit” on 15th and 16th August under the Banner “Reclaiming SADC For Peoples’ Development and Solidarity : Let the People Speak!!!. The Peoples’ Summit will offer CSO’s and Social Movements and opportunity to consolidate the outcomes of the process we launched in 2006. The Peoples’ Summit Objectives include: • To update popular and progressive organisations in all the countries of Southern Africa about recent developments and the direction being followed by the institutions and governments of SADC and in so doing, promote a bottom-up people-driven process to “Reclaim SADC for Peoples’ Solidarity and Development Cooperation”… • To express our firm opposition to those international institutions and foreign governments that presume to decide or dictate the direction of public policies and programs in our countries and region(s), and that instrumentalize national governments and regional institutions for their own purposes • To communicate to the mainstream media our concerns and our alternative visions for our communities, countries, region and continent, and in order to encourage wider public awareness and engagement on these vitally important processes and to point to alternatives to the “opening up” and deepening exploitation of our peoples and countries within the neo-liberal globalised capitalist economy • To share our views and proposals with the widest possible sections of our respective populations in all our countries, and to take our alternative perspectives from this summit to the Southern African Social Forum, due to take place in Mozambique in October 2007. • To ensure that all these outcomes and activities contribute towards building local, national, regional, continental and international peoples’ movements towards an equitable, people-centred and sustainable future for our peoples , countries, (sub) regions/continent and world, beyond the damaging and destructiveness of uncontrolled globalised capitalism. The Peoples’ summit will give the people of the region a chance and space to share their experiences and map out strategies and recommendations for the Heads of State Summit. The Summit will come out with Peoples’ Declaration that will be shared with the SADC Summit. For further details contact SAPSN at http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?page=links_altreg-sapsn