Southern African Development Community

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been in existence since 1980, when it was formed as a loose alliance of nine majority-ruled states in Southern Africa known as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). Its main aim was to co-ordinate development projects in order to lessen economic dependence on apartheid South Africa. The founding member states are: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Today the SADC consists of 15 southern African countries and continues to develop its members' economic and social position.

Pre-existing situation & UTCFS’s role

When, in 2009, the SADC headquarters were moved to Gaborone, Botswana, the security of the new site was of utmost importance, given that the facility would house multiple southern African officials. To ensure that no aspect of their safety would be overlooked the organisation turned to professional security consultants AR Edwards & Associated Consulting Engineers to advise on requirements for the new security system. The recommendation was unequivocal - a total security package was needed, comprising video surveillance, intrusion detection, access control, and fire detection. The SADC carefully assessed the products and services of several security manufacturers, with UTCFS emerging as best in its class.

UTCFS’s solution

Today there are 22 surveillance cameras located throughout the SADC facility. These are connected to hard-disk recorders allowing important events to be recorded automatically. UTCFS's ATS Master control panel is used for both intrusion detection and access control. It integrates these two systems through a single hardware solution, controlling access through 35 door readers. For fire detection UTCFS has installed its FP2000 platform, a high quality and reliable product which caters to possible future expansion. These different security systems are brought together and managed through UTCFS’s Alliance software package. A graphical format guides users through the software tool, showing where doors are opened, sounding the alarm when either an intrusion or fire detector is activated, and even capturing these events automatically on camera. The SADC’s system is one of UTCFS's premier reference sites in Africa.