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As
SADC celebrates 20 years of development cooperation, growing from nine
member states in 1980 to 14 in this year 2000, it is Africa’s most
dynamic regional bloc, and offers a number of challenges as it comes of
age in its 21 st year.
Of particular significance are the efforts by the member
countries that brought independence and majority rule to southern
Africa, to entrench this culture of democracy and accountability through
their electoral systems and legal infrastructure.
The SADC Parliamentary Forum is one of the engines designed
by the SADC members to strengthen and sustain democratic governance. By
creating a platform for dialogue and advocacy on regional cooperation at
the parliamentary level, SADC has opened new opportunities for advancing
regional integration of decision-making.
The SADC Parliamentary Forum is hosted by Namibia, which
has been an active member of SADC since independence in 1990, and also
hosts the sectors on Fisheries and Marine Resources, and Legal
Affairs.
Namibia will chair SADC for one year from August, and while
it boasts a growing economy and stable political environment, the
country faces similar challenges to those of other member states: to
reduce poverty and improve access to health and education, to increase agricultural
productivity and rural development, and
to strengthen economic cooperation to compete in the brave new world of
globalisation.
The task of SADC in the new millennium is to continue
creating the requisite conditions for sustainable development in the
areas of: democracy, equality and gender, water and other natural
resources, the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and other communicable
diseases, investment in education, especially in science and technology,
and economic and social development.
The challenge is to create
an enabling environment for SADC countries to identify these issues as
cross-border imperatives. It is therefore critical to establish a
cross-border institutional foundation, a regional perspective and common
approaches.
The SADC Education Protocol is an important tool for the
development of integrated
strategies to strengthen the delivery of quality education in the
region. It is vital that the essential role that education plays in
social and economic development in member states is recognized as
a critical factor in developing new approaches to improving the
quality, relevance and
effectiveness
of education. Institutions
of higher learning must grapple
with a number of pressing concerns, not least the growing demand for
building capacity in the face of shrinking budgets with the resultant
decline in the quality of education offered.
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The gradual reduction of the role of the state in higher
education, and the need to respond to the global economy, under-score
the need for a paradigm shift in the way universities, in the
regional context, deliver the educational product.
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Professor
Katjavivi
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View on Namibia's
forthcoming leadership of SADC |
Sharing resources and knowledge and collaborating in teaching, research
and related academic programmes, such as distance education delivery
models, are opportunities for enhancing the quality of education at
tertiary level. However, the concept of university for industry –
which are smart partnerships between universities, industry and civil
society, as a means of creating relevance in curricula, reducing funding
dependence on government, maintaining autonomy, and generating economic
growth – is clearly a new understanding of the changing role of
higher education in the region,
on the continent and through-out the world.
The strategies for making education-al opportunities
available to all must include the
systematic integration of gender in development planning.
Equality of women is as much a human rights is-sue as it is a
prerequisite for sustainable development. Women have a key role in
supporting their households (60 percent of
SADC households are headed by women), constitute the majority of the
population and are affected more severely by poverty, yet they remain
under-rep-resented in leadership positions.
SADC in this millennium will have to intensify its efforts
in initiating changes in systems and laws, and in issues such as credit
and employment barriers, to ensure the participation of women in the
political and economic decision-making processes. There is a long and
deter-mined road to travel to reach the goal of 30 percent women in
decision-making by the year 2005, agreed by SADC Heads of State at their
annual summit in Malawi in 1997.
SADC in this
millennium will have to intensify its efforts in initiating changes in
systems and laws, and in issues such as credit and employment barriers,
to ensure the participation of women in the political and economic
decision-making processes. There is a long and deter-mined road to
travel to reach the goal of 30 percent women in decision-making by the
year 2005, agreed by SADC Heads of State at their annual summit in
Malawi in 1997.
The empowerment of women in farming
and agriculture, and in ownership and usage of land, is critical for
sustainable
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development. Food security is decisive to human development,
and for the prospects of reducing poverty in the SADC region. Maintaining a sustainable
environment with appropriate administration of water and other resources
offers prospects for regional collaboration. Initiatives that utilize
existing resources rather than adding expensive inputs to eliminate
pollution, increase
productivity, and create new jobs, are innovative approaches to
ecological and economic stability.
The University of Namibia in
collaboration with sister institutions, is involved in promoting total
productivity of raw materials through research projects adding
value in utilising waste materials.
Similar projects on crop diversification, energy
systems, low-cost building technologies and marine agronomy technologies
are being undertaken which require regional co-operation and
partnerships.
These research efforts are aimed at promoting
income-generating activities, stimulating
diversification and establishing strategies
and management methods for
integrating the best that science and technology
has to offer.
When His Excellency
Dr. Sam Nujoma, President of Namibia
assumes the SADC chair in August, it
is expected that these issues
will be addressed, through consolidation
and practical initiatives.
Particular attention
will focus on harnessing science and technology for accelerated
development. Without de-liberate and systematic strategies for the
development of this sector, the region will continue to be a net
exporter of raw materials (at give-away prices) and a net importer of
manufactured and industrial goods (at exorbitant prices).
Regional
economic development and integration continues to be hampered by the war
in Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), there-fore investment
in conflict prevention could
go a long way towards facilitating development.
SADC has registered many
achievements in the past 20 years in laying a firm foundation for
regional cooperation, strengthened in the past year under the leadership
of President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, even while he confronted
the challenges that water in flood can present to human development. We
salute him for his wisdom and fortitude, and we see in the response to
that disaster the arm heart of regional support
and collaboration. As he hands over
the challenges of regional leader-ship to President Nujoma, his
active involvement and experience will remain at the service of SADC
through the troika system of
consultation.
The people of SADC look forward to consolidating their
achievements under Namibia’s leadership, and implementing programmes
of action that will strengthen
regional understanding, integration and development.
Prof. Peter H. Katjavivi is Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Namibia, and Chairman of the Board of the Southern African
Research and Documentation Centre.
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