Submitted by freenet on Mon, 27/09/2010 - 21:54
CHANNELS:
Pretoria - Home Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma will over the next two weeks visit four nations in Europe, namely Belgium, France, Rome and Switzerland.
The minister, who is expected to depart for Europe today, will first travel to Belgium, ahead of President Jacob Zuma's state visit in Wednesday.
She will co-sign the Visa Waiver Agreement between South Africa and the Benelux countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands) for diplomatic and official passport holders with her counterpart. The Visa Waiver Agreement will be signed during Zuma's state visit on Wednesday.
Dlamini Zuma will then visit France and Rome from Thursday to Sunday where she is expected to visit South Africa's Embassies with a view of reviewing Home Affairs operations in each of these countries. This comes within the context of the minister's commitment to reviewing the operations of Home Affairs with the aim of improving service delivery levels of the department, at home and abroad.
On Monday next week, Dlamini Zuma is to lead a senior South African government delegation to the 61st session of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Executive Committee in Geneva, Switzerland.
South Africa is one of the 79 members of the UNHCR Executive Committee.
The minister will deliver South Africa's statement to the Executive Committee which is expected to focus on, amongst others, the documentation and regularisation of Zimbabwean nationals in South Africa which began on 20 September and will continue until 31 December 2010.
During its sitting, the Executive Committee is expected to deliberate on the challenges currently facing the UNHCR, such as the intractability of conflict, globally displaced populations, including Afghan and Somali refugees and asylum seekers and natural disasters which are having increasingly severe consequences and impact on local populations and accelerated the numbers of internally displaced people.
It will also discuss the response by the international community to protracted situations and its impact on host countries, such as the financial and economic responsibilities to refugees, the need for increased international support, resettlement, the support for refugee-affected and host areas and attempts to reduce the refugee footprint.
The minister is also expected to hold a series of bilateral discussions on the margins of the UNHRC meeting. - BuaNews