by Munetsi Madakufamba – SANF 05 no 14
Business plans and one-year budgets presented to the SADC Council of Ministers meeting in Mauritius on 21-25 February will launch the implementation of SADC’s strategy for development of southern Africa.
The implementation strategy is based on two road maps – the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) and the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO) on Politics, Defence and Security.
The RISDP and SIPO are long term plans that were separately launched last year. Business plans for each sector or theme have been developed to unbundle the long-term plans and clearly define the responsibilities of each role player as well as the resources required during the implementation phase.
One-year budgets for these business plans and for the SADC institutions 2005/6 financial year are expected to be approved by Friday when the meeting ends. The Ministers will also review progress on preparations for the SADC Consultative Conference to be convened on 25-27 April also in Mauritius.
Under the theme, “Partnership for the implementation of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan”, the consultative conference will seek to build a new partnership involving key stakeholders such as international cooperating partners, civil society, NGOs and the private sector. The conference is expected to agree on the overall goal of the new partnership, its objectives and guiding principles.
In the first quarter of this year, implementation of RISDP and SIPO is expected to roll into motion.
“The [business] plans will help the SADC Secretariat, the member states and other stakeholders to understand the feasibility of achieving desired results from activities performed by directorates and units based on current resource constraints,” says Prega Ramsamy, SADC Executive Secretary.
A priority for the Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment directorate is to fast-track trade liberalization in order to establish a Free Trade Area by 2008, as envisaged in the Trade Protocol.
A mid-term review done last year recommended further simplification of the rules of origin in order to make the private sector respond more positively to market access opportunities.
The Trade Protocol also provides for the establishment of a Customs Union by 2010. To this end, the SADC Sub-committee on Customs Cooperation adopted a Customs Union Road Map last year, to prepare customs administrations for 2010.
The sub-committee established a Conformity Assessment Mechanism, consisting of strategic components that form a checklist against which implementation of the Protocol can be assessed.
In order to put in place the various customs instruments as well as harmonise regional training of customs officials and stakeholders, the sub-committee has developed and adopted training modules.
Priorities for the Economic Partnership Agreements to be negotiated with the EU were defined last year and negotiations were expected to begin in January 2005. Intense preparatory work was done by member states and SADC Secretariat, with the latter setting up a special unit to coordinate and facilitate the negotiations.
For the harmonization of SADC Mining Policies, Standards, Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks, an experts meeting convened last year proposed a model framework which “will be considered by an ad hoc meeting of mining ministers before March this year.”
Food security remains a top priority for the Food, Agriculture and natural Resources (FANR) directorate in 2005. The situation in most countries is improving from previous years, and member states are continuing to honour their commitments made in the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security. The declaration seeks to boost agricultural production in the region.
Regarding environment and land management, a partnership involving SADC, the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) is working on the second Southern Africa Environment Outlook report which is expected to be launched at the Consultative Conference in April.
Among other things, the report will give the current state and trends in various aspects of the environment, the pressures and policy responses to environmental issues in the region. It will “present the future outlook of environment in the region basing on scenario analysis and give recommendations towards contributing to poverty reduction.”
Top priority for the Infrastructure and Services directorate is to avert a possible energy crisis given that the region is forecast to run out of its generation surplus capacity by 2007. New projects are thus being developed to avert the shortage.
The directorate is promoting road infrastructure development focusing on upgrading “regional missing links”, bridges and rehabilitation of roads within the framework of the Development Corridors Strategy.
The best practice of this strategy is the Maputo Development Corridor that has seen substantial investment in transport and communications infrastructure, creation of enterprises including the anchor project, the Mozambican Aluminium (Mozal) Smelter in Maputo, as well as jobs created along the corridor. Similar corridors are being created elsewhere in the region.
Other projects are on establishing cost effective and efficient communications systems and water supply that are necessary to buttress industry and commerce in the region, as well as attracting tourists to the region.
As a way of promoting intra-SADC tourism and expediting regional integration, work is underway to create a UniVisa. A study is to be commissioned to look at the harmonization of Immigration Laws, Regulations and Procedures.
With regards to the Social and Human Development and Special Programmes directorate, efforts are being intensified to “address the challenge of improving the availability of educated, skilled, healthy, informed, culturally responsive and productive human resources.”
To this end, a SADC Intra-Regional Skills Development Programme was developed to improve the availability of skilled and competent specialists within the priority development areas of the SADC region. (SARDC-SADC Today)
