by Joseph Ngwawi – SANF 15 no 6
Southern Africa is in the process of concluding the drafting a new blueprint that will recalibrate the region’s development trajectory for the next five years.
A multi-stakeholder task force responsible for the review of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) will meet in Harare, Zimbabwe on 22-23 February to validate the contents of the updated Draft RISDP 2015-2020 and its Draft Implementation Framework.
“The main purpose of the meeting is to validate the contents of the updated Revised RISDP 2015-2020 and the Draft Implementation Framework,” according to the SADC Secretariat.
The task force comprises representatives from the 15 member states, the SADC Secretariat, SADC subsidiary and affiliated institutions, policy research institutions and independent experts.
The last meeting of the RISDP taskforce was held in August 2014 in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, following which the Draft Revised RISDP 2015-2020 was presented to the 34th Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government.
The Summit noted the draft and directed the SADC Secretariat to finalise the document by frontloading industrialisation and its implementation strategy for consideration by the Council of Ministers in March 2015.
The draft Revised RISDP 2015-2020 has been updated and a Draft Implementation Framework has been produced based on the Summit directive.
After the multi-stakeholder meeting, both documents are subject to further consultations with the Ministerial Task Force on Regional Economic Integration scheduled to meet in March to ensure that industrialisation is accorded centrestage.
The Revised RISDP, which is expected to be presented at an Extraordinary SADC Summit scheduled for Zimbabwe on 30 April, identifies four main priorities to be pursued by the region from 2015-2020.
Priority A seeks to promote industrial development and market integration through, among other things, strengthening the productive competitiveness and supply side capacity of member states as well as improving movement of goods and facilitating financial market integration and monetary cooperation.
Priority B is on provision and improvement of infrastructure support for regional integration. The region already has a Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan that was approved at the Summit of Heads of State and Government in Maputo, Mozambique in August 2012.
Priority D is on promotion of special programmes of regional dimension under clusters such as education and human resource development; health, HIV and AIDS and other communicable diseases; food security and trans-boundary natural resources; environment; statistics; gender equality; and science, technology and innovation and research and development.
The above three priorities will be underpinned by Priority C on promotion of peace and security.
The 34th SADC Summit decision not only gave prominence to industrialisation, but also injected the much-needed energy and focus on value-addition and beneficiation of SADC’s raw materials.
In order to implement the Summit decisions, the Secretariat has engaged a team of prominent experts and organisations to support member states in developing a practical, effective, and implementable strategy and roadmap for industrialisation in the region.
The strategy and roadmap should assist SADC to accelerate its pace of industrialisation.
The importance of industrialisation was acknowledged by the SADC leaders as far back as 2003 when they adopted the RISDP which, among others, advocated for the diversification of the industrial structure and exports with more emphasis on value-addition across all sectors by 2015.
Furthermore, the SADC Protocol on Trade recognises the importance of industrialisation in the context of the implementation of the SADC Free Trade Area (FTA).
Article 4(2) of the SADC Protocol on Trade states that the elimination of import duties under the SADC FTA “should be accompanied by an industrialisation strategy to improve the competitiveness of Member States”.
Given the importance attached to industrialisation, concerted efforts have taken place, with a number of initiatives being put in place.
The most comprehensive initiative relates to the Industrial Upgrading and Modernization Programme (IUMP), which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers of Trade in 2009 in order to implement the RISDP component on industrialisation.
The IUMP, developed with assistance from UNIDO, seeks to enhance the competitiveness of existing industrial capacity and promote the development of regional value chains in selected sectors across the region, including through upgrading existing manufacturing capacities, modernizing productive facilities, reinforcing the institutional support infrastructure, and strengthening the region’s capacities for research and innovation.
Although nine sectors were identified as having potential, the focus is currently on the minerals, agro-processing and the pharmaceutical sectors. However, this does not mean that the other priority sectors will not be supported.
To underscore the importance of industrialisation, the Committee of Ministers of Trade adopted the SADC Industrial Development Policy Framework in 2012.
The policy framework seeks to enhance cooperation and facilitate the development of backward and forward linkages or synergies across SADC industrial sectors, gradually building a diversified, innovative and globally competitive industrial base across the region.
It outlines the following broad cross-cutting and sector-specific interventions for implementation at regional level, including the development and exploitation of mutually beneficial opportunities in SADC; improvement of standards, technical regulations and quality infrastructure; promotion of cooperation on innovation, technology transfer, and research and development activities; development of mechanisms to improve access to finance for manufacturing and related sectors; and improvement of support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The SADC Secretariat has undertaken a number of actions in order to progress work on industrialisation, especially in the minerals, agro-processing and pharmaceutical sectors.
The Secretariat is in the process of undertaking studies on profiling mineral beneficiation and identifying the skills requirements in the minerals sector.
On the pharmaceutical sector, the Secretariat is undertaking a feasibility study on regional production of medicines and commodities especially those related to HIV and AIDS, TB and Malaria and another study to identify training and research needs and facilitation of the selection of centres of excellence.
In 2013, SADC adopted the Regional Agriculture Policy. The Policy identifies a number of strategies on enhancing sustainable agricultural production, productivity and competitiveness, improving regional and international trade and access to markets of agricultural products, and improving private and public sector engagement and investment in the agricultural value-chains. sardc.net
