Southern African Development Community

**Southern African Development Community**

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(In Detail)

Headquarters Gaborone, Botswana Membership 14 member states Working languages English, French and Portuguese Formation
- As SADCC
- As SADC

April 1, 1980
August 17, 1992 Executive Secretary Tomaz Augusto Salomão Official Website http://www.sadc.int

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an organization that aims to promote Southern African regional cooperation in economic development.

History

The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), which was the forerunner of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was formed in Lusaka, Zambia, on 1 April 1980, following the adoption of the Lusaka Declaration (entitled Southern Africa: Towards Economic Liberation) by the nine founding member states.

The Declaration and Treaty establishing the Community, which replaced the Coordination Conference, was signed at the Summit of Heads of State or Government on 17 August 1992, in Windhoek, Namibia.

Elections

The SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections, adopted in August 2004 by SADC countries, govern conduct of elections. There is concern that these principles are not being adhered to in Zimbabwe for the 2005 parliamentary elections. ^*

Member States

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SADC had nine founding member states, all joining on 1 April 1980, namely:

Several more states have joined since, bringing the current number of member states to 14:

- since 31 March 1990 (since independence)
- since 30 August 1994
- since 28 August 1995
- since 8 September 1997
- since 18 August 2005

Seychelles also joined on 8 September 1997, but left on 1 July 2004. On 2 December 2005, however, it appeared that the Seychelles would rejoin some time in 2006. ^*

Rwanda applied, but its application was rejected because of procedural omissions ^*.

Aims of the SADC

The main aims of the Southern African Development Community are:

To harmonise the political and socio-economic policies and plans of the member states.
To mobilise the people of the region and their institutions to take initiatives to develop economic, social and cultural ties across the region, and to participate fully in the implementation of the programmes and projects of the SADC.
To create appropriate institutions and mechanisms for the mobilisation of requisite resources for the implementation of the programmes and the operations of the SADC and its institutions.
To develop policies aimed at the progressive elimination of obstacles to free movement of capital and labour, goods and services, and of the peoples of the region generally among member states.
To promote the development of human resources.
To promote the development, transfer and mastery of technology.
To improve economic management and performance through regional cooperation.
To promote the coordination and harmonisation of the international relations of member states.
To secure international understanding, cooperation and support, mobilise the inflow of public and private resources in the region.
To develop such other activities as member states may decide in furtherance of the objectives of SADC.

Challenges and Approaches

Before 2001 the countries forming the SADC have identified many common challenges. These challenges are divided into sectors as follows:

Environment and land management
Inland fisheries, forestry and wildlife
Tourism
Culture, information and sport
Marine fisheries and resources
Finance and investment
Human resources development
Industry and trade
Employment and labour
Food, agriculture and natural resources
Water conservation and distribution
Transport and communication
Legal affairs
Transport, communications and meteorology
Legal affairs
Health
Mining
Crop production

The SADC has, as of August 2001, restructured and adopted a centralised approach in running the integration and development of its 14 member countries. The aim of decentralising or internationalising the sectors was for SADC to guide and coordinate regional policies and programmes on a country-by-country basis.

With the restructuring of SADC sectors since 2001, SADC has now approached a more centralised approach through which the sectors are grouped into four Directorates, namely;

Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment
Infrastructure and Services
Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources
Social and Human Development and Special Programmes

All these Directorates are based in the SADC Head Quarters in Gaborone, Botswana. With the previous decentralised strategy, each member country was allocated a sector to coordinate. Each country was tasked with a particular sector or sectors. The responsibility for the country charged with particular sectors involved proposing sector policies, development strategies, setting priorities, and processing projects for inclusion in the sectoral programme, monitoring progress and reporting to the SADC Head Quarters. Sectors were allocated to each member country based on the country's perceived strengths and opportunities.

The following is an illustration of how sectors were allocated to each member country based on strengths and opportunities found in that particular country.

Country	Sector responsibility	Strengths
Angola	Energy	Angola is rich in mineral resources e.g. oil
Botswana	Agricultural research	Botswana is mainly a farming country.
Lesotho	Environment and land management	Lesotho is mountainous with many rivers
Malawi	Inland fisheries, forestry and wildlife	Lakes Nyasa and Victoria
Mauritius	Tourism	Mauritius is essentially well known tourism country
Mozambique	Culture, information and sport	Mozal Transport, communications and meteorology
Namibia	Marine fisheries and resources
South Africa	Finance and investiment	Advanced medical facilities
Swaziland	Human resources development
Tanzania	Industry and trade
Zambia	Employment and labour	Mining
Zimbabwe	Food agriculture and natural resources	Crop production

The centralised or global strategy has seen all these sectors grouped into four Directorates and based in SADC Head Quarters in Gaborone, Botswana, as already indicated. The four Directorates are the core activities of the SADC headquarters. The previous decentralised policy appeared to promote regional integration and to ensure that each country's strengths and opportunities are explored. The previous system also appeared to have been working considering that a country that is lacking in a particular area can rely on the other country that has strengths on that area. Say for example, if Swaziland is experiencing water shortages, it can source water supply from Lesotho with its large rivers.

When SADC followed the decentralised approach it reasoned along the following lines:

To offload work done at the SADC Head Quarters to the 14 member countries, allowing the SADC Secretariat time to focus on critical issues.
To give each member country a sense of control and a feel of belonging to the community by giving responsibilities in each member country.
The SADC also realised that there is flexibility in the decentralisation of SADC functions, more rapid local responsiveness and attuning the Community to local conditions of each member country.

Decentralisation ensured that the decisions taken are influenced by conditions and cultures of each member country. Decisions taken are often informed decisions. Nevertheless on the operational level the decentralised country by country sectors was too complex to manage and coordinate. Projects were initiated but in most of the cases were not started or after started they were not completed.

The decentralised approach also involved large sums of money that was not always available. With the decentralised approach, member countries were, instead of integrating became more polarised since each country was focusing in developing sectors in their own countries and saw little benefits in working with other member countries. With the decentralised approach, in reality and practice, there was no integration. These are reasons that forced SADC to re-look the decentralised approach and eventually restructured itself by 2001.

The main reasons why the SADC centralised its functions are the following:

SADC wanted to facilitate coordination. SADC saw the decentralised 14 sectors dispersed in the 14 member countries difficult to coordinate.
To ensure that decisions are consistent within the entire SADC system. When decisions are dispersed around 14 countries, country managers can make decisions at variance with those at the SADC Head Quarters in Botswana. Centralisation of functions reduces this risk.
By centralising all the functions in SADC Head Quarters in Botswana, the Secretariat may find it easier to speed up the integration process without circulating document decisions to various dispersed sectors.

Economic achievements

With the present centralised strategy, and through the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan a strategy has been mapped out that would allow member countries’ economies to grow steadily over the years to reach the targeted 7% growth rate. This strategy centres on the twin pillars of good economic governance and good political governance.

Already some Member countries are emerging as continental leaders in terms of macroeconomic policies and poverty reduction strategies as well as institution building and these are: Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa. In terms of the economic performance within the Region, Angola is leading the way with a 13.8% growth rate, followed by Mozambique with 8% and Tanzania with 6.2%. Improvements in growth rates have also been witnessed in Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.

On the Public Index Rankings, as contained in the Global Competitiveness Report, four of SADC's member states ranked among the top ten, with Botswana ranking first. The three others are South Africa, Mauritius and Tanzania (Ramsamy, 2003).

References:

McCormick, J. The European Union: Politics and Policies. Westview Press: Boulder Colorado, 1999.
Ramsamy, Prega 2003 Global partnership for Africa. Presentation at The human rights conference on global partnerships for Africa’s development, Gaborone: SADC

General information

SADC is one of the pillars of the African Economic Community.

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Southern African Development Community