by Phyllis Johnson
This is part of a series on regional integration.
Perhaps the most sensitive issue facing the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is not the membership of a post-apartheid South Africa, but the task of persuading its existing 80 million citizens to “think regional”.
For a region long carved up into colonial entities and then nationalist ones, the concept of promoting historical, social and cultural affinities, rather than differences, is a radical one indeed.
In 1994 it remains a mental exercise to imagine the free movement of people, goods and services, and investment capital, throughout the region from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic – and ultimately from the Cape to Kilimanjaro.
Yet the decade of the 1990s represents an economic, social and political revolution – this region will enter the year 2000 in an entirely different form from that in which it began this
decade.
The treaty signed by heads of government in Windhoek in 1992, transforming the old Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) into a new development community,
provides the framework. But information remains the key to implementation.
According to SADC itself, the greatest success of the regional grouping since its formation in 1980 has been “in forging a regional identity and a sense of common destiny among the ten member states,” although “regional cooperation is yet to become a factor in the strategies of the member states for national development.”
A 1992 SADCC theme paper, Towards Economic Integration, defines a major weakness of the organisation as “its failure to bring all sections of the region’s societies into the mainstream of
regional cooperation efforts. Regional cooperation will remain a ‘paper caste’ until it touches the lives of the ordinary citizens of the region and until they can be involved in determining its form and content”.
“In many ways,” the paper says, “the real question is not whether some form of regional integration arrangements will be attempted in southern Africa, but rather on what principles and terms; and the extent to which the people of the region will be involved in shaping it.”
To this end, SADC Ministers agreed to launch a public awareness and mobilization campaign in the region, aimed at building a popular constituency for SADC. This campaign involves
national seminars, regional sectoral seminars, and a regional “omnibus” or start-up seminar for brainstorming on challenges and opportunities.
The first seminar on mobilization for community building was held in Zimbabwe in July 1993, attended by parliamentarians, NGOs, trade unions, academics, media and others from all SADC countries as well as liberation movements and NGOs from South Africa.
Answering skeptics who see only a region battered by over a decade of South African destabilisation (cost estimates now reach well over US$60 billion), as well as drought, AIDS and an acute
skills shortage, the representative of the European Community, Michael Laidler, drew encouraging parallells.
“Less than 50 years ago,” he said, “Europe was a broken continent with its infrastructure, supply arrangements, industrial and social systems in ruins, with well over 10 million people killed or
maimed in a worldwide shattering conflict.”
Yet, “today, the European Community is the largest single trading block in the world, with high levels of living standards and social conditions, where nationals of anyone of the Twelve may freely
travel, do business and live throughout the Community, and in which all aspects of trade and commerce take place on an equal footing and where a common political and economic stance
on world issues is becoming a reality”. To avoid failure, he advised, “Populations must participate fully.
“It is important to avoid the mistake that has come close to setting the European Community back for many years. The social and economic interests of the ordinary citizen must be kept fully in mind and the people must be informed and persuaded that the political and economic advantages to governments of integration also match their individual interests.
“Forget that lesson at your peril. The Maastricht Treaty was not understood by the ordinary citizen [in Europe] and they nearly torpedoed it.”
Despite its successes, the European Community (now the European Union) has been dubbed “Euro-bore” because the majority of its population finds its activities boring.
However, defending the public image of his Community, the European representative added that, “if her citizens think that it’s boring, then it is in a way a compliment, because it means that it
has become routine and taken for granted.” –
At the same seminar, a public relations consultant, Stan Higgins, emphasized the need for two-way communication in order to establish and maintain mutual understanding and goodwill.
“Mobilizing public awareness and support depends as much on listening as on talking.”
He gave the results of an informal survey of 50 people, a mixture of types in terms of economic status, age, sex, race, national and educational background. Out of 50 responses, he said, 45 had
heard of SADC, although only 22 were aware of the new acronym, and only 16 people were able to write out the name in full.
Four people (8%) were able to list all the members, and 10 (20%) felt that the organization provided tangible benefits to its members. However, only five people (10%) felt that tangible benefits are
apparent to individual citizens. Eight people knew the working languages are English and Portuguese.
None of those surveyed knew the list of SADC objectives and none knew the infra structural make-up of the community (Summit, Council of Ministers, Commissions, Standing Committee of
Officials, Secretariat and Tribunal).
“Interestingly, 45 people knew that the SADC Executive Secretary is Dr Simba Makoni [now Dr Kaire Mbuende] and the other five knew of him.”
Among the proposals made by participants at that seminar were that: – SADC should establish an NGO desk to facilitate NGO work;
– SADC community at every level should be involved in the mobilization of resources in order to become self-reliant;
– each constituency should be made aware of its obligations to the community;
– business councils should be revitalized;
– an enabling environment should be created for the region’s population to participate in SADC programmes at grassroots level;
– the media should be given access to more information on SADC; and
– SADC should continue to forge a spirit of regional identity through sporting and cultural activities, including use of community logos, slogans and flags.
SADC’s newest sector, for Culture and Information, is preparing a programme to address some of these issues, including a series of regional festivals and cultural exchanges, a conference on democracy and human rights, and plans for greater information outreach in the region. Culture and Information is based in Mozambique, and the sector coordinator is Yolanda Mussa, one of three SADC sectors headed by women.
The sector gets strong support from the European Community, which has identified the key role played by information in community development. “First, integration must at all times be based on
positive motivation by all those concerned, not just government and officials,” the EC representative told the community-building seminar. “People, and particularly the private sector, must believe that the process is of benefit to them.”
The SADCC Press Trust, supported by the Nordic countries, is another key institution in providing information for community-building. The Southern African Economist, a publication of the
Trust, was launched in 1988, and has established a reputation for itself as a source of reliable, often critical but always constructive, information about the SADC region.
Speaking on behalf of the region’s Information Ministers at the launch of the magazine, Milimo Punabantu of Zambia challenged the media to fulfil its potential. “The media has illuminated Southern Africa out of political darkness. The media must now illuminate Southern Africa out of the equally debilitating economic darkness.”
Recognition by SADC leaders of the importance of information for development dates from its origins, as Botswana President Quett Masire, reminded the editors of the new magazine:
“The founders of SADCC recognised,” he said, “that its success depended in part on a clear understanding of its aims and objectives, support by their own peoples and the extent to which they
participated and benefited from its programmes.”
As the 21st century draws near, the theme document on regional integration notes that, “Progress in the world is increasingly based on science and technology, advanced human skills and ,
ever-increasing levels of productivity.”
As in, or perhaps more than the market place, the circulation of information depends increasingly on technology, and on rapidly evolving new – and in fact simpler – means of communication, such as fax and electronic mail (E-mail). E-mail is now widely used within, and between, some SADC member countries, although its usage is not as widespread as in Europe.
SADC universities have established an E-mail system, which is improving the reliability and speed of communications between them. Whereas letters by regular mail can take as long as one
month for delivery between some SADC countries, E-mail sends messages by computer at high speed down telephone lines. The message is transmitted as fast as the telephone is connected, and much cheaper than by any other means of communication.
Storage and distribution of quantities of information is becoming easier through the use of CD-ROM (Compact Disc – Read Only Memory), in which discs similar to those used for music are
the medium for wider distribution of whole data bases of topical information.
CD-ROM is already widely used in distributing medical and agricultural information to universities in this region, and environmental information is available on CD-ROM in some European
countries. The producers of the upcoming report on the State of the Environment in Southern Africa (SARDC, IUCN, PANOS and SADC-ELMS) hope to make it available for reference on CDROM
as well as in book form.
These advances in technology actually make provision of information easier, cheaper, and more widely available, providing an appropriate technology for use in the SADC region. Usage and
development of this technology in the region will be essential to economic growth, in order to maintain an equilibrium in regional and international information exchanges.
SADC objectives envisage the building of a shared future of cooperation based on economic growth and productive employment; evolution of common political values, systems and institutions; peace and security; sustainable development; complementarity of national and regional strategies; sustainable utilisation of resources; protection of environment; and strengthening the
“long standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among peoples of the region.”
“There is, therefore,” according to SADC documents, “a critical need to develop among all the countries and peoples of southern Africa, a vision of a shared future, a future within a regional
community.” (SARDC)
