Southern African Development Community

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Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Flag of the Southern African Development Community Logo of the Southern African Development Community
Location of the Southern African Development Community
SADC-only (yellow) and SADC+SACU members
Headquarters Gaborone, Botswana
Working languages English, French, Portuguese , Afrikaans
Membership 15 African states
Leaders
 -  Secretary General Tomaz Salomão
Establishment
 -  as the SADCC April 1, 1980 
 -  as the SADC August 17, 1992 
Website
http://www.sadc.int

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization. It furthers socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security cooperation among 15 southern African states. It complements the role of the African Union.

Contents

[edit] History

The origins of SADC lie in the 1960s and 1970s, when the leaders of majority-ruled countries and national liberation movements coordinated their political, diplomatic and military struggles to bring an end to colonial and white-minority rule in southern Africa. The immediate forerunner of the political and security cooperation leg of today's SADC was the informal Front Line States (FLS) grouping. It was formed in the mid-1970s.

The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was the forerunner of the socio-economic cooperation leg of today's SADC. The adoption by nine majority-ruled southern African countries of the Lusaka declaration on 1 April 1980 paved the way for the formal establishment of SADCC in July 1981.

Membership of the FLS and SADCC sometimes differed.

SADCC was transformed into SADC on 17 August 1992, with the adoption by the founding members of SADCC and newly independent Namibia of the Windhoek declaration and treaty establishing SADC. The 1992 SADC provided for both socio-economic cooperation and political and security cooperation. In reality, the FLS was dissolved only in 1994, after South Africa's first democratic elections. Subsequent efforts to place political and security cooperation on a firm institutional footing under SADC's umbrella failed.

On 14 August 2001, the 1992 SADC treaty was amended. The amendment heralded the overhaul of the structures, policies and procedures of SADC, a process which is ongoing. One of the changes is that political and security cooperation is institutionalised in the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS). One of the principal SADC bodies, it is subject to the oversight of the organisation's supreme body, the Summit, which comprises the heads of state or government.

The headquarters of SADC is in Gaborone, Botswana.

[edit] Member states

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SADC has 15 member states, namely:

Flag of the Seychelles Seychelles had also previously been a member of SADC from 8 September 1997 until 1 July 2004.

[edit] Challenges facing member countries

SADC countries face many social, development, economic, trade, education, health, diplomatic, defence, security and political challenges. Some of these challenges cannot be tackled effectively by individual members. Cattle diseases and organised-crime gangs know no boundaries. War in one country can suck in its neighbours and damage their economies. The sustainable development that trade could bring is threatened by the existence of different product standards and tariff regimes, weak customs infrastructure and bad roads. The socio-economic and political and security cooperation aims of SADC are equally wide-ranging, and intended to address the various common challenges.

[edit] Aims of the SADC

SADC's aims are set out in different sources. The sources include the treaty establishing the organisation (SADC treaty); various protocols (other SADC treaties, such as the corruption protocol, the firearms protocol, the OPDS protocol, the health protocol and the education protocol); development and cooperation plans such as the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) and the Strategic Indicative Plan of the Organ (SIPO); and declarations such as those on HIV and AIDS and food security. Not all of the pre-2001 treaties and plans have been harmonised with the more detailed and recent plans such as the RISDP and SIPO.

In some areas, mere coordination of national activities and policies is the aim of cooperation. In others, the member states aim at more far-reaching forms of cooperation. For example, the members largely aim to coordinate their foreign policies, but they aim to harmonise their trade and economic policies with a view to one day establishing a common market with common regulatory institutions.

[edit] SADC structure and decision-making procedures

The organisation has eight principal bodies:

Except for the Tribunal (based in Windhoek, Namibia), SNCs and Secretariat, decision-making is by consensus.

[edit] SADC in practice

SADC is a weak organisation. It is under-resourced, and the member states are not happy to give it the powers that they agreed to give it when they launched the overhaul of the organisation in 2001.[citation needed]

One significant challenge is that member states also participate in other regional economic cooperation schemes and regional political and security cooperation schemes that may compete with or undermine SADC's aims. For example, South Africa and Botswana both belong to the Southern Africa Customs Union, Zambia is a part of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and Tanzania is a member of the East African Community.

[edit] Flag

The flag of the organization came from the people of the member countries; a competition was held to design a new flag and in 1995 the new design was chosen. The new flag has a navy blue field with a green circle in the centre, and the SADC logo is in the centre of the green circle. In the official description of the flag, the blue symbolises the sky and ocean that bring water and life, and the green represents the rich flora and fauna. The region's rich gold wealth is represented in the colour of the lettering. The flag was first used in the 1995 SADC Summit at the World Trade Centre in Johannesburg.

[edit] Leaders

[edit] Chairman

[edit] Secretaries-General

  • Kaire Mbuende (1994-2001)
  • Prega Ramsamy (2001-present)

[edit] Comparison with other regional blocs

African Economic Community
Pillars
regional
blocs (REC)		 Area (km²) Population GDP (PPP) ($US) Member
states
in millions per capita
AEC 29,910,442 853,520,010 2,053,706 2,406 53
ECOWAS 5,112,903 251,646,263 342,519 1,361 15
ECCAS 6,667,421 121,245,958 175,928 1,451 11
SADC 9,882,959 233,944,179 737,335 3,152 15
EAC 1,817,945 124,858,568 104,239 1,065 5
COMESA 12,873,957 406,102,471 735,599 1,811 20
IGAD 5,233,604 187,969,775 225,049 1,197 7
Western
Sahara 1		 266,000 273,008  ?  ? N/A 2
Other
African
blocs		 Area (km²) Population GDP (PPP) ($US) Member
states
in millions per capita
CEMAC 3 3,020,142 34,970,529 85,136 2,435 6
SACU 3 2,693,418 51,055,878 541,433 10,605 5
UEMOA 3 3,505,375 80,865,222 101,640 1,257 8
UMA 4 5,782,140 84,185,073 491,276 5,836 5
GAFTA 5 5,876,960 166,259,603 635,450 3,822 5
1 The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is a
signatory to the AEC, but not participating in any bloc yet

2 Majority under military occupation by Morocco; some
territory administered by the SADR
3 Economic bloc inside a pillar REC
4 Proposed for pillar REC, but objecting participation
5 Non-African members of GAFTA are excluded from figures
     smallest value among the blocs compared      largest value among the blocs compared During 2004. Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database

This box: view • talk • edit
Most active regional blocs
(as of 2004, except as noted)
Regional bloc1 Area Population GDP ($US) Member
states1
km² sq mi in millions (PPP) in millions (nominal) per capita (PPP) per capita (nominal)
AU 29,797,500 11,504,879 897,548,804 1,515,000 1,131,850 1,896 1,261 53
ASEAN (2007 est.) 4,497,493 1,736,000 566,500,000 3,115,480 1,173,000 5,541 2,041 10
CACM 422,614 163,172 37,816,598 159,536 84,792 4,219 2,242 5
CARICOM 462,344 178,512 14,565,083 64,219 24,020 4,409 1,649 (14+1)3
CCASG / GCC 2,285,844 882,569 35,869,438 536,223 717,800 14,949 20,011 6
CEFTA 298,148 115,116 28,929,682 222,041 122,001 7,675 4,217 (7+1)3
EU (2007 est.) 4,324,782 1,669,808 497,000,000 14,953,000 16,574,000 28,213 33,482 27
EurAsEC 20,789,100 8,026,720 208,067,618 1,689,137 1,125,528 8,118 5,409 6
EFTA (2007 est.) 529,600 204,480 12,660,623 567,500 743,300 44,828 60,000 4
GAFTA 9,421,946 3,637,834 280,727,416 1,341,298 N/A 4,778 N/A (16+1)3
GUAM 810,506 312,938 63,764,600 456,173 106,469 7,154 1,670 4
NAFTA (2007 est.) 21,783,850 8,410,792 445,000,000 15,857,000 15,723,000 35,491 35,564 3
PARTA 528,151 203,920 7,810,905 23,074 N/A 2,954 N/A (12+2)3
SAARC 5,136,740 1,983,306 1,467,255,669 4,074,031 N/A 2,777 N/A 8
Unasur / Unasul 17,339,153 6,694,684 370,158,470 2,868,430 N/A 7,749 N/A 12
UN and countries
for reference2		 Area Population GDP ($US) Units4
km² sq mi in millions (PPP) in millions (nominal) per capita (PPP) per capita (nominal)
UN 133,178,011 51,420,318 6,411,682,270 55,167,630 48,245,198 8,604 7,524 192
Brazil (2007 est.) 8,514,877 3,287,612 183,888,841 1,804,000 1,067,706 10,073 6,842 27
Canada (2007 est.) 9,984,670 3,855,103 33,000,000 1,274,000 1,406,000 38,200 42,738 13
India (2007 est.) 3,287,590 1,269,346 1,120,000,000 4,726,000 1,089,000 4,182 1,004 35
Japan (2007 est.) 377,873 145,898 127,433,494 4,346,000 4,346,000 33,800 38,341 47
PR China5 (2007 est.) 9,596,960 3,705,407 1,321,851,888 7,043,000 3,420,000 5,300 2,800 33
Russia (2007 est.) 17,075,200 6,592,772 142,500,000 2,076,000 1,286,000 14,600 9,056 83
USA (2007 est.) 9,826,630 3,794,083 302,000,000 13,543,000 13,794,700 43,500 45,594 50
Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database, IMF nominal figures for 2006.[citation needed]
Legend
     smallest value among the blocs compared     largest value among the blocs compared

Footnotes
1 Including data only for full and most active members.
2 Including the largest five countries by area, population (not #4), GDP (PPP) (not #5), and GDP (nominal) (not #3 or #5).
3 Including non-sovereign autonomous areas of other states.
4 Members or administrative divisions.
5 Data for the People's Republic of China does not include Hong Kong, Macau, or the independent Republic of China (Taiwan) (over which PRC claims sovereignty).

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[edit] Timeline

[edit] 2007

[edit] 2008

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Gabriël Oosthuizen, The Southern African Development Community: The organisation, its history, policies and prospects. Institute for Global Dialogue: Midrand, South Africa, 2006.
  • John McCormick, The European Union: Politics and Policies. Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado, 2004.
  • Ramsamy, Prega 2003 Global partnership for Africa. Presentation at The human rights conference on global partnerships for Africa’s development, Gaborone: SADC


  1. ^ Railways Africa - EXTENDING BEYOND CHIPATA
  2. ^ [1]

[edit] External links

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Southern African Development Community (SADC)
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