The Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit held in Lagos in April 1980 adopted the
Lagos Plan of Action for Economic Development
of Africa 1980 -2000. The move was in response
to the perceived need for action to provide the necessary
political framework for measures to achieve
self-sustaining development and economic growth
in Africa (OAU, 1980).
In the context of the Lagos Plan, African leaders
stressed their commitment to ensuring a central
place for human resources development and for
the production of skills needed for development in
all sectors of the economy. They underlined the need to eliminate illiteracy
and to take measures
to address the problems
of unemployment and underemployment,
shortage of particular skills needed
for development, the
absence of coordination
of policies for human resource
development, and
deficiencies in national
educational systems.
The Lagos Plan highlights
the contribution of human resources development
strategies to the improvement of living
standards through increased employment and income
generating opportunities. It also focuses on
the utilization of indigenous technologies and the
promotion of science and technology as a basis for
the economic transformation of African societies.
The Lagos Plan of Action calls on OAU member
states to cooperate in the development and utilization
of regional, sub-regional and international
training and research institutions. The plan urges
countries to institute frameworks for staff development,
supported by requisite financial arrangements,
sectoral advisory committees and central
advisory councils.
There was SADCC before SADC
in 1980 southern African countries that had
attained political independence and majority
rule, otherwise known as Front-Line
States {FLS), convened an "Economic Summit
or the Majority-Ruled States of Southern
Africa" in Lusaka. That summit created
the Southern Africa Development Coordination
Conference (SADCC). Consultations
on the creation of SADCC continued at the
subsequent summit held in Harare, in 1981.
SADCC had two fundamental objectives.
First, the couJ}tries wanted to reduce the
vulnerability of their economies, which were
dependent on apartheid South Africa due to
historical links. They were seeking to delink
their economies from South Africa and
to coordinate their strategies for development
as a region. Secondly, the FLS were
seeking to coordinate their support of strategies
for attaining majority rule in apartheid
South Africa and the independence of South
West Africa.
According to the Lusaka Declaration 1980
and the Harare Memorandum of Understanding
1981, SADCC was intended to develop
into a mobilizing force for the achievement
of economic liberation, raising of
standards of living and consolidation of
freedom, peace, security and social justice
within southern Africa.
The principal objectives of SADCC included
the creation of links and regional integration,
and the mobilization of resources to
strengthen policies and strategies for interstate
development. Addressing the inaugural
session of the Lusaka summit, former
Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda, called
for the development of SADCC into a "powerful
front against poverty and all its offshoots
of hunger, disease, crime, exploitation
of man by man."
He further stated that convening SADCC summits would
become "our workshop for sharpening our tools, forging
new weapons, working out a new strategy and tactics for
fighting poverty and improving the quality of life of our
peoples." (quoted in Hoppers, 1996).
SADCC identified a number of strategic areas for the purpose
of coordinating post-independence development initiatives
and efforts to reduce the countries' economic dependence
on apartheid South Africa.
Infrastructure sectors were identified as priority areas in
the initial stage of this cooperation. These included agriculture,
transport and communication, industry, trade, energy,
and "manpower" development. Regional coordination
mechanisms were to be created to promote cooperation
in these areas. The late President of Mozambique,
Samora Machel, illustrated the nature of the coordination
envisaged at the time, in his speech at the Lusaka summit:
" ...We must be conscious of ti1.e fact that we
are not presently in condition to create an economic
community of the region, but we can from
this moment on, take firm steps in some of the
areas already identified: agriculture, industry,
trade, energy. ..The experience of the Frontline
States in the struggle for support of liberation
of the oppressed and exploited people of
southern Africa taught us that to each one of our
initiatives and victories, imperia1is~ responds
with new maneuvers. ..." (quoted in Hoppers,
1996)
SADCC transformed into SADC
A decade later, at the 1992 summit held in Windhoek,
capital of the newly independent Namibia, the
SADCC Heads of State and Government signed a Treaty
transforming SADCC into the Southern African Development
Community (SADC). The event was a 'culmination
of a process, which had fostered the experience of working
together and a sense of regional identity. Several of the countries
in the region had developed experience at inter country
cooperation even prior to the creation of SADCC a decade
earlier.
The region was experiencing historical changes. The most
important of these changes included the independence of
Namibia, the positive steps towards the establishment of
majority rule in South Africa; and the trend involving a
shift to more market-oriented economic systems in the region.
These changes "provided a propitious time to begin
the integration process in southern Africa" (SADC, 1993).
The argument was advanced that regional integration would
provide a strengthened collective capacity for countries to
address problems of national development, and the challenges
associated with the changing and complex regional
and global environment. SADC leaders saw a clear link
between the launch of their organization and the Lagos Plan
of Action:
The signing, by the Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity, of
the Treaty establishing the African Economic
Community, assumed the establishment of strong
regional integration groups. These would form
the building blocks fur the continental body.
SADC is such a building block for southern Africa"
(SADC, 1993).
Building on the objectives of the Lusaka Declaration and
the Harare Memorandum of Understanding, the Windhoek
Treaty reaffIrmed, and sought to strengthen, the principles
of sovereignty, solidarity, peace and security, human rights,
democracy, and the rule of law. It also highlighted the values
of equity, balance and mutual benefit, and peaceful settlement
of disputes. The countries of the region needed to
work together in fostering measures for self-sustaining development
and growth.
The SADC Treaty provides a comprehensive framework
within which the countries undertake to coordinate, harmonize
and rationalize their policies and strategies for sustainable
development. It seeks to forge links for the maintenance
of a genuine and equitable process of regional integration
in the following areas:
-
food security, land and agriculture;
-
infrastructure and services;
-
industry, trade, finance and investment;
-
human resource development, science and
technology;
-
natural resources and environment;
-
social welfare, information and culture; and
-
politics, diplomacy, international relations,
peace and security.
SADC reinforced the decentralised
structure originally adopted
by SADCC as a principal feature
of its organization. The arrangement,
which provided for member
states to coordinate specific
sectors, made it unnecessary
to create a large regional secretariat.
The treaty assigned to member
states responsibility for initiating,
coordinating, rationalizing, harmonizing
and managing sectoral policies and programmes. This approach was to ensure more
direct involvement by member states in the implementation
of the activities of the organization. Institutionalization
of programmes at the regional level was to be preceded
by development of concrete activities on the ground rather
than the other way round.
Member states would involve non-governmental and civil
society organizations in implementing sectoral programmes.
The small central secretariat would deal with global and
inter sectoral issues.
