by Joseph Ngwawi – SANF 06 No 111
The curtain comes down on 2006 amid great optimism in southern Africa over a return to lasting peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the dawn of the official countdown to a regional free trade zone slated for 2008.
Another eventful year comes to an end, with a sense of achievement for member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
A major milestone during the year was the holding of watershed DRC presidential and legislative polls that ushered in a new political dispensation for a country that has not known real peace since it attained independence in June 1960.
The Congolese people gave President Joseph Kabila another chance to continue with economic and political reforms that have so far ensured a smooth transition from war to stability in the DRC.
The youthful Kabila amassed 58.05 percent of the more than 16.2 million Congolese who voted in a 29 October presidential election second round.
The presidential poll had to go to a second round run-off after both Kabila and his closest rival, Jean-Pierre Bemba, failed to amass the requisite 50 percent-plus-one votes in the first round held on 30 July.
Kabila, 35, was inaugurated on 6 December as the DRC’s second democratically elected president. His victory came more than 46 years after the election of the country’s first post-independence president, Joseph Kasavubu.
The return to lasting peace in the DRC has significance to southern Africa. Although located in central Africa, the DRC is economically and regionally affiliated with southern Africa as a member of SADC.
The third largest country in Africa, the DRC has vast but largely untapped economic potential, including one of the world’s largest diamond, copper and cobalt deposits. It was the fourth largest producer of industrial diamonds in the 1980s and the mineral continues to account for over half of its annual exports.
The DRC also has vast untapped agricultural capacity and could be the next food-basket of Africa, only if current peace holds on.
Lasting peace in the DRC will mean that for the first time since the late 1950s when African nationalism gave birth to liberation movements in most SADC member states, the region will enjoy political stability and security.
The guns have been silent for several years in Angola and Mozambique and both countries are involved in reconstruction programmes.
Angola has been able to reap a peace dividend from the stability existing in the country.
Petrol-dollars have fuelled a restoration boom in the country torn by 27 years of civil war that only ended in 2002, and Chinese firms are also helping build roads, railways and housing.
It is now sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest crude oil producer after Nigeria and pumps 1.4 million barrels a day, a figure the government sees rising to two million barrels per day by the end of 2007.
Since the end of the civil war in 1992, Mozambique’s economy has grown on the back of economic reforms and infrastructural developments. It registered average Gross Domestic Product growth of about eight percent a year from 1995 to 2004, with the government and International Monetary Fund forecasting 7.9 percent growth in 2006.
Another milestone for southern Africa during 2006 was the renewal of a commitment by regional leaders to establish a Free Trade Area by 2008.
With just over 12 months remaining before the SADC region can create its Free Trade Area, member states have committed themselves to ironing out outstanding impediments for the region to achieve set targets.
SADC countries have since 2000 been implementing a programme towards creating a Free Trade Area by 2008, a Customs Union by 2010, a Common Market by 2015 and a Monetary Union by 2018.
However, the August 2006 Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government in Maseru, Lesotho, raised concern about the pace at which SADC’s economic integration programme was being implemented.
The summit appointed a ministerial task force to come up with a progress report which was tabled before an extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government in Midrand, South Africa, in October.
The extraordinary Summit noted that several challenges needed to be overcome but reaffirmed the region’s commitment to achieving the trade milestones.
As part of its implementation, member states have been negotiating tariff reduction schedules, rules of origin, a dispute settlement mechanism, special product agreements, elimination of non tariff barriers and harmonisation of customs, trade documentation and clearance procedures.
Economic integration in SADC is guided by the Trade Protocol, which was signed in 1996 and came into force in 2000.
2006 was also the year when southern Africa struck a new deal with its International Cooperating Partners (ICPs), marking a fresh start in the donor-recipient relationship between SADC and the ICPs.
The Windhoek Declaration on a New SADC-ICP Partnership, adopted on 27 April at the SADC Consultative Conference in Namibia, guides future cooperation between SADC and the ICPs by establishing an institutional structure for dialogue on political, policy and technical issues, and improve coordination of efforts between the two parties to ensure more effective development cooperation.
It will also ensure alignment, harmonisation and streamlining of operational procedures, rules and other practices in the delivery of development assistance to SADC, and guarantee synergies and complementarity of support provided at national and regional levels.
The ICPs pledged their continued support for southern Africa and noted that the challenges for SADC were to ensure provision of “renewed leadership” and to assume greater ownership of regional programmes and projects.
Besides the achievements on the political and economic front, the SADC region continues to face the challenge of declining electricity generation capacity.
It is projected that the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP)’s net generation capacity could run out by 2007, a development that necessitated investment in the rehabilitation of existing power stations and into new short-term project to boost supply of electricity.
The region has a total combined net generation capacity of 45,000 megawatts and requires, according to SAPP, about US$5.2 billion between now and 2011 to rehabilitate existing power stations and invest in short-term electricity generation projects.
As 2007 beckons, the region will also be aiming to consolidate gains made in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Most countries registered declines in the rate of prevalence of HIV among their populations.
