By Staff Reporter
HARARE-The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is developing a comprehensive logistics manual aimed at standardising logistical support across the bloc’s defence forces and ensuring seamless coordination during regional operations, said a senior member of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces.
Brigadier General Benjamin Sabata who is the chairman of the SADC logistics working group committee, who was speaking on the sidelines of the regional bloc’s logistics working group meeting of technical experts in Harare on Monday said the initiative follows the development of a SADC logistics doctrine, which provides the broad framework for logistics operations among member states.
Zimbabwe, which assumed the SADC chairmanship from South Africa, is now leading efforts to translate the doctrine into a more detailed and practical manual that can be used by logistics personnel across the region.
He said the committee operates under the SADC Defence Subcommittee, which brings together chiefs of defence from member states.
“We are the logistics committee. We are responsible for logistics support to all SADC operations, be it disaster response and everything,” he said.
Brigadier General Sabata said the logistics doctrine was developed during South Africa’s tenure as SADC chair, providing member states with a common framework for coordinating logistical operations.
The next step, he said, is to develop a manual that will provide detailed guidance on how the doctrine should be implemented.
“We want to have a common Bible or a common book that answers to us all,” je said, highlighting the need for a standard reference document for SADC logistics personnel despite differences in language and military systems among member states.
The manual is expected to establish common standards, including scales of issue and supply requirements for different military operations.
For example, Brigadier General Sabata said, logistics planners need to determine the appropriate quantities of fuel and other supplies required by troop-carrying vehicles, stores vehicles, aircraft, engineering units and marine operations.
“There are vast ways of doing logistics. We now know how much to give to your air platforms, how much logistics support to support your engineers, and to those who might be doing marine work, how much fuel should you give them,” he said.
The proposed manual will therefore bring together these requirements into a common framework that can be applied by SADC member states when providing logistical support to regional operations.
Unlike the doctrine, which sets out broad principles, the manual will contain more detailed and practical guidance and is expected to be accessible to personnel working at different levels within military logistics structures, he said.
Brugadier General Sabata said they intend to work throughout the week to produce a draft that can be considered for ratification by the relevant SADC defence structures.
“We are here to work flat out to make sure that when we leave on Friday, at least we would have managed to come up with something that can be immediately used after it has been ratified,” he said.
The process will also draw from existing logistics manuals and frameworks developed by the African Union and the United Nations, with the aim of ensuring that the emerging SADC system is compatible with wider continental and international standards.
For Zimbabwe, the initiative is expected to have benefits beyond SADC operations.
The country is a member of SADC and also participates in African Union and United Nations operations. A standardised regional logistics system could therefore help Zimbabwe Defence Forces personnel better understand and meet the logistical requirements of different multinational deployments.
“After we have our SADC manual, we’ll also try to look at our own manuals as Zimbabwe Defence Forces to align to what we are doing here,” he said.
The development of the manual is expected to strengthen interoperability among SADC member states and improve the coordination of logistics whenever regional forces are called upon to respond to security, humanitarian or disaster-related operations.
The initiative underscores the importance of logistics in ensuring that regional operations have the fuel, equipment, supplies and other resources required for personnel to effectively carry out their assigned tasks. -New Ziana
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