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President Robert Mugabe’s one-year term as Sadc chairman ends at the bloc’s 35th Heads of State and Government Summit that closes in Gaborone, Botswana, today.
His dual chairmanship of the regional grouping that he assumed in August last year, and that of the African Union that he assumed in January this year have been befitting for the undoubted icon of African liberation, a patriot who sees well ahead of his time. The President leaves Sadc more stable and peaceful than when he took over.
But the greatest legacy that he leaves for Sadc is his clear definition of the path that the region has to follow towards greater economic prosperity centred on black empowerment, value addition and beneficiation, or industrialisation. We will not feel ashamed to state proudly that President Mugabe is the only African leader who articulates an insightful, sovereign brand of politics that asserts our African interest and independence against Western imperialism.
During the past 12 months, President Mugabe’s leadership of Sadc has helped Zimbabwe project the fact that political independence without economic independence is useless.
The theme for the August 2014 Sadc Summit in Victoria Falls “Sadc Strategy for Economic Transformation: Leveraging the Region’s Diverse Resources for Sustainable Economic and Social Development through Beneficiation and Value Addition” set the agenda for the year that followed and the long-term future of the bloc.
It derived a lot from Zimbabwe’s political and economic thrust since 2000, of putting the formerly marginalised blacks at the centre of the economy, resource nationalism and industrialisation.
Given that much of Sadc, apart from South Africa, is still to industrialise, the theme awakened the region to the compelling need for them to come up with policies and programmes that transform their economies and the socio-economic conditions of their people beyond the cheap Western-inspired notion that views economic development only on the basis of how it alleviates poverty. It awakened them to the need for them to work out strategies for the exploitation of their natural resources to benefit their citizens.
It encouraged Sadc governments to ensure that their citizens lead in the exploitation of their resources, not to always look to Europe and America to do it for them. It encouraged them to not simply exploit the natural resources and end there, but to fully do so by adding value and beneficiating them. The last point means industrialisation, for you cannot add value and beneficiate a raw material and fail to industrialise.
President Mugabe’s acceptance speech established the theme:
“Our region has abundant resources, which resources, instead of being sold in raw form, at very low prices, must instead be exploited and beneficiated, in order to add value and cost to those products which we eventually export. This process should assist us in our efforts to industrialise, and in turn, increase employment opportunities for our people. Excellencies, distinguished guests, Sadc should also wean itself from exporting raw materials, but instead seek to create value chains that lead to the exportation of finished goods. I am confident, that in our discussions, we will lay a foundation for the necessary strategies, as well as a plan of action on the beneficiation and value addition of our natural resources. Our material resources are capable of playing a pivotal role in the development of all Sadc member states.”
We remember the President in the same speech also urging the regional bloc to fund its own programmes, condemning the situation whereby the Sadc secretariat and its programmes are funded to a factor of 60 percent by Europe and America.
Five months into his Sadc chairmanship, President Mugabe was accorded yet another honour, to chair the AU. For him personally and Zimbabwe as a whole, the concurrent honours have a profound significance. They came a few months after he and his party Zanu-PF had won elections most resoundingly after years of narrow, bitterly-contested electoral victories and vilification by the usual detractors. Sadc and Africa maintained their solidarity with Zimbabwe regardless of the vilification.
So in according Zimbabwe both honours Sadc and AU were signalling the return of Zimbabwe to the family of nations, not as an agenda item for summits, but as an agenda setter and thumbing their nose at the West.
The President acknowledged this solidarity in his acceptance speech saying, “Let me conclude by thanking Sadc for standing by Zimbabwe at a time when we faced serious challenges. We thank Sadc for consistently calling for the removal of EU and Western illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe, illegal because they were not sanctioned by the UN whose effects are debilitating to our economy and to our people.”
His term officially ended yesterday, but Sadc will take the past 12 months as a defining period that they must use to transform their economies by promoting meaningful indigenous participation and ownership, value addition and beneficiation.
Online Reporter