Heads of State and Government of the eleven countries that constitute the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) will meet, on Wednesday, in Zambia for a special summit on illegal exploitation of natural resources, the regional body has announced.

Zambian President Rupiah Banda is currently the Chairman of the ICGLR Heads of State summit. According to an ICGLR statement, the idea to call the special summit came up during the AU summit that took place in Addis Ababa in January this year. "The Heads of State had expressed the need to look into the problem of illegal exploitation of natural resources and all the negative consequences it has had in the region,” the communiqué reads in part.

"Since then, a good number of initiatives have been carried out by the different stakeholders involved in the mining sector,” it added.

Apart from the member states and co-opted countries, the summit will also be attended by the Group of Friends and Special Envoys to the Great Lakes, co-chaired by European Union and Canada.

The summit will also coincide with the fourth anniversary of the signing of the pact on security, stability and development in the Great Lakes region in Nairobi, Kenya.

The ICGLR was created in 2004 as a response to the conflicts that ravaged communities across the Great Lakes Region, notably the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as civil unrest and recurring wars in DR Congo and Burundi.

ICGLR members include Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Rwanda. Others are Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

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