At the request of the International Conference (ICC) on the Great Lakes Region, Zambia has agreed to host an urgent regional ministerial meeting to discuss the security situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Ministers of Defence and their Chiefs of Defence from the 12 member states are mandated to attend the meeting that will start from the 8th to the 10th of January in Livingstone, Zambia.

The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region is an intergovernmental organisation of countries in the African Great Lakes Region. 

Its establishment was based on the recognition that political instability and conflicts in these countries have a considerable regional dimension and thus require a concerted effort to promote sustainable peace and development.

Its founding history began in 2000, when United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1291 and 1304 called for an international conference on peace, security, democracy, and development in the Great Lakes region.

Later that year, the Secretariat of the International Conference was established in Nairobi, Kenya, under the umbrella of the United Nations and the African Union.