By Munetsi Madakufamba – SANF 04 no 20
ARUSHA, 12 March 2004 – The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has unveiled a landmark blueprint for integrated regional development and poverty eradication. Launched by the Chairperson of SADC, President Benjamin William Mkapa, the historic blueprint is meant to guide a new SADC that has emerged out of a rigorous restructuring process.
The Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) was launched on 12 March at the start of a two-day SADC Council of Ministers meeting in Arusha, setting in motion a 15-year mission to, among other targets, halve the number of people living on less than US$1 per day in SADC. The RISDP, which will be reviewed on a five-yearly basis, has important milestones in all key areas of regional integration.
Its time-bound targets are beacons that lead toward continental and international goals, in particular the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The overriding target is to attain annual economic growth rates of at least seven percent, necessary to halve the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015.
Reflecting on the role Tanzanians played in support of liberation struggles in southern Africa, President Mkapa said, “Today we fight a different war… a war against poverty and deprivation… we need all the people in southern Africa to feel deeply for this struggle, to be attached to it, to realise that it is the only hope for our children in a globalising world.”
The leafy Tanzanian town of Arusha, where the launch ceremony took place, is widely regarded as the “Geneva of Africa”. Situated near the famous Mount Kilimanjaro and the Ngorongoro and Serengeti game parks, Arusha is not only a symbol of sustainable development, but also a renowned centre that has hosted many regional and international meetings of historic significance.
With many such meetings resulting in famous “Arusha declarations”, one delegate wondered, “May be we should call this one the Arusha Plan”.
In July 1979, a ministerial meeting was convened at the Arusha International Conference Centre, bringing together what was then known as the Frontline States and donor agencies to ponder ways of enhancing economic liberation and reducing dependency on the then apartheid South Africa. It is at this meeting that the idea of forming SADC was concretised, culminating in the Arusha Declaration.
The Southern Africa Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC), the precursor to SADC, was then formally launched at a summit in Lusaka, Zambia, in April 1980, with nine founding member states. Although SADCC was a loose regional functional cooperation organisation, it facilitated important political, administrative and infrastructural links and projects.
In 1992, at a summit in the Namibian capital Windhoek, the organisation was transformed, through a Declaration and Treaty, from a “coordinating conference” to a “development community”, that is from SADCC to SADC. The aim was to give the organisation an integration mandate with a formal and legal basis. To facilitate this, sector protocols and charters were introduced and to date, more than 20 have been signed.
Over the last two decades, SADC membership has increased to what it is today, with Namibia joining in 1990, Mauritius and South Africa in 1994, while Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Seychelles also joined in 1997.
With the organisation growing in size and mandate and new challenges and opportunities arising, it became necessary to realign the institutional structure of the 14-member body. Consequently, a decision was taken at an extra ordinary summit held in Windhoek in 2001 to restructure all SADC institutions.
As part of the process, 21 sectors previously coordinated by member states were collapsed into four directorates that are now centrally managed by an enlarged SADC Secretariat in Botswana. The new directorates are on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment; Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources; Infrastructure and Services; and Social and Human Development and Special Programmes.
The RISDP was thus formulated to provide a clear direction for SADC policies, programmes and activities over the long term.
Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation described the RISDP as a framework within which member states should align national plans.
“The RISDP is a home grown blueprint,” he said, adding that its development was done by “SADC experts and their leaders through a consultative and participatory process”. The plan is built around a number of intervention areas. One of these is regional cooperation in ensuring food security.
In recognition of the critical importance of food security, and the recurrent nature of food shortages in the region, President Mkapa has called for an extra ordinary SADC summit to discuss and agree on short, medium and long-term strategies. The summit is expected to take place in Dar es Salaam, on 14 May 2004.
Prega Ramsamy, SADC Executive Secretary, said the immediate task after the launch of the RISDP is to unbundle the plan, “allocating clear and specific roles to key-players with quantifiable deliverables”.
Quoting from President Mkapa’s recent address to the nation, Ramsamy said, “… like an aircraft on the runaway, we are facing the right direction… we must now take off”. He said this statement is true for the United Republic of Tanzania as it is for the rest of SADC.
“It is indeed, time for us to take off on the wings of the RISDP,” said the SADC chief. (SARDC)
