adminChristopher Farai Charamba Correspondent
The year was 1992, the place, Windhoek, Namibia. Ten Southern African Heads of State and Government gathered to sign the Treaty of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
This organisation was the successor to the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) which had been established in 1980. SADCC was an institution formed to advance the cause of national political liberation in Southern Africa as well as reduce dependence particularly on the then apartheid South Africa.
SADC, on the other hand, was seen as the vehicle with which to drive the regional integration agenda with a special focus on the region’s economic development.
In the preamble of the SADC Treaty, the Heads of State mentioned that they were conscious of their duty “to promote the interdependence and integration of our national economies for the harmonious, balance and equitable development of the region”.
With this in mind in 2004 SADC launched the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP). This was a 15-year plan to be implemented between 2005 and 2020 and was set to provide “a comprehensive development agenda for socio-economic development policies in the SADC region”.
In the 13 years between the transformation of the SADCC to SADC and the initiation of the RISDP, the regional body grew its membership from 10 to 15 countries with South Africa joining in 1994, Mauritius in 1995, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Seychelles in 1998 and Madagascar in 2005.
The push for regional integration seemed to be taking proper shape and the RISDP was to be the implementation framework guiding the process for the next 15 years.
Under the plan were outlined specific integration milestones that would see SADC become a full economic union with a single currency by the year 2018.
The first milestone was the formation of a Free Trade Area to support inter-regional trade by the year 2008. Next on the plan was the establishment, by 2010, of a Customs Union with common external tariffs for the Free Trade Area.
Following on from this SADC was supposed to have a Common Market in 2015, by agreeing common policies on production regulation.
This year, 2016, SADC was meant to attain a Monetary Union through macro-economic convergence and finally adopt a single currency in 2018, turning the region into an Economic Union.
Aside from the creation of Free Trade Area in 2008, most of the other milestones have been missed completely and it is evident that by 2020 SADC would have failed to implement the RISDP.
In fact, while the Free Trade Area was created in 2008, Angola, DRC and Seychelles remain outside of it, while Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe at some point fell behind with the implementation of their tariff commitments.
The Free Trade Area was supposed to support and improve inter-regional trade. However, this too has been largely unsuccessful as inter-regional trade remains as low as 10 percent for all 15 coun- tries.
The second milestone that SADC was supposed to meet in 2013 was the establishment of a Customs Union. This has failed to take shape due to constraints in the SADC Secretariat.
Another major challenge, according to SADC, was the establishment of a single Common External Tariff which is complicated by the fact that within SADC there are currently 11 individual tariff policies that will need to converge into a single and uniform tariff regime.
Without the Customs Union in place every other milestone is unattainable and SADC remains a largely ineffective organisation in bringing about the regional integration agenda.
What seems to be a major hurdle limiting the RISDP and impeding regional integration is the lack of political will from the SADC 15 member states. While the SADC Secretariat has a comprehensive strategic plan which it follows, the relative milestones cannot be achieved without the buy-in of the member states.
This lack of political will is evidenced from the nonchalant approach states within the region have taken to signing, ratifying and adopting some of the SADC protocols, declarations, charters and memorandums.
The Status on Protocols on Declarations in SADC as at August 2012 showed that there were protocols which were ratified by as few as five states and some states which had signed, adopted or ratified less than half of the protocols and declarations.
In August 2012, of the 43 protocols and declarations, the DRC had only signed or ratified 20 of them, Madagascar only three.
One of the key protocols tabled in 2005, that would see to the attainment of a common passport for the region and contribute to the implementation of the Free Trade Area, the SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons, had only been ratified by one country, Mozambique, and signed by six others. More than half of the SADC membership had just neglected it.
Similarly, the SADC Finance and Investment Protocol tabled in 2006 had only seven signatories with no country ratifying it.
The indifferent approach by some of the member states to the implementation of important and strategic policies is a major hindrance to the regional integration agenda. On the face it, governments may seem to be for the idea of integration with their heads of government routinely making statements to suggest so. However, what is on the ground and on paper shows that SADC countries are far from putting into practice many of the things they say.
Interestingly, the argument for regional integration is more than evident. Individually some countries in the region have a population of two million people or less, with GDPs of under $2 billion. SADC as a region has a population of over 258 million people with a combined GDP of $668 billion in 2013.
In the era of Look East policies, it does not bode well for a nation like Lesotho with a population of over a million to negotiate trade with a country like China or India with populations of over a billion people. Negotiating as a region, however, gives more clout to the negotiations and allows for the region to attain better terms from the negotiations.
In fact, with the abundance of resources found in the 15 countries the region could easily be self- sufficient and the wealthiest in the world.
What seems to be a main hindrance is the idea of national sovereignty. SADCC was founded on advancing the cause of national political liberation in the region. Regional integration and an economic union, however, require forgoing some of one’s national sovereignty.
The situation with the EU and Greece has shown that a monetary policy without a fiscal policy to guide it is a recipe for disaster. With the economic indiscipline of some of the member states in SADC it would be idle to think that there can be a common currency without some form of body to govern how states utilise it.
SADC as an institution lacks the requisite power and authority to compel members to follow through and or implement policies. States are also unlikely to cede their national sovereignty to the regional body and give it the necessary authority.
As such, without the political will, SADC remains an old boys’ club that likes the idea of regional integration but lacks the capacity to implement it.
Online Reporter