The Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation (MIRCO) has confirmed that Bornito De Sousa Baltazar Diogo, Vice President of Angola, will pay an official visit from June 15 to 18 at the invitation of Vice President Dr Nangolo Mbumba.
According to MIRCO, this will be the Vice President’s first inbound official visit since becoming Vice President of the country.
“While in Namibia, Diogo is expected to hold bilateral talks with Dr Mbumba, where they will exchange views on issues of mutual interests and concern at bilateral, regional and continental, as well as multilateral fora,” they added.
The two vice presidents will also visit Etosha National Park and engage regional and local authorities on Namibia‘s experience in local authority governance, according to the ministry.
Namibia and Angola elevated their Joint Commission mechanism, which was co-chaired by Ministers, to a Bi-National Commission (BNC), which will be co-chaired by Angola and Namibia’s Presidents, with Angola hosting the BNC’s inaugural session later this year.
Namibia and Angola share many similarities but also have significant differences. Both countries, for example, fought colonial oppression and are now independent; however, one went through civil war while the other did not. Another similarity is that former military groups (Angola’s Movimiento Popular para la Liberacion de Angola, or MPLA, and Namibia’s South West Africa People’s Organisation, or SWAPO) are now in power in both countries.
During their respective liberation struggles, the two political movements shared a common ideological platform and lent each other support. The two countries share a 1,376-kilometer border that runs from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Zambezi River in the west. Families and communities on both sides of the international border share resources, communicate, trade, and participate in other forms of exchange.