The SADC Council of Ministers meet in
Midrand, South Africa, 18-24 February to endorse a proposal that seeks to overhaul the
organization’s structures to improve its ability to mobilize resources as well as enhance its
operational performance.
Council, SADC’s second highest
decision-making structure after the Summit, met in November last year to adopt
a proposal that will reorganize SADC’s programmes and activities around four core
clusters of sectors, down from the cur-rent 21 coordinated by its 14 member
countries.
The sectors will be moved from the member states into an enlarged
secretariat where they will be under the jurisdiction of directorates who will receive
support from national committees.
The proposal says committees of
relevant ministries will be set up to oversee operations of the clusters, and will be
given authority to make decisions on project implementation without reference
to the full council. |
The restructuring exercise was “an outcome of the realization of the fact that
our organization is not moving at the pace that is desirable for our regional
integration,” said Mozambican Foreign Affairs Minister Leonardo Simão, then
chairperson of Council when he addressed an Extraordinary Session of the
Council of Ministers last year.
One of the main problems, which impedes the organization
from moving at the pace that member states would like to see, is the fact that there is not a
definition of a common agenda, goals, priorities, deadlines as well as a regional
development plan.
“The current integrated development based on the
sectoral strategy is limited by an inadequate management frame-work, which does not respond clearly
with regard to the articulation of the objectives, policies, priorities and
deadlines.”
The current decentralized system, where sectoral staff are
mostly seconded from, and essentially under the control of |
national governments, has been
criticized for poor coordination among some sectors and failure to recognize the
critical synergies that exist between and among the sectors.
The different capacities of the member states in terms of
human, material and financial resources have resulted in sectors functioning differently,
and often impacting negatively on operational performance.
Simão said while the existing
structure is effective as far as it creates a sense of ownership of SADC by member states,
its main weakness “is related to the level of performance and implementation of
the activities of different sectors, which vary considerably as a result of the
capacity of the host country to sustain them.”
The current recommendation is expected to be approved by an
Extraordinary SADC Summit due to meet in March to look specifically at this issue, as well
as the appointment of the head of the secretariat. |
The four core clusters are:
- trade, industry, finance and investment;
- infrastructure and services;
- food, agriculture and natural resources; and
- social and human development.
A decision was made at the 1998 Maputo summit to restructure all SADC
structures including the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security. The terms of
reference for the restructuring committee were later approved by Council in
Mbabane last year.
It was not clear at the time of writing what would happen to the Organ, as well
as the Commissions – the Energy Commission in Angola and the Southern
African Transport and Communications Commission in Mozambique. |
| SADC
portfolios |
| Country |
Sector
coordinated |
| Angola |
Energy |
| Botswana |
Agricultural
Research;
Livestock Production;
Animal Disease Control |
| Lesotho |
Environment
and Land Management
Water |
| Malawi |
Inland
Fisheries;
Forestry;
Wildlife |
| Mauritius |
Tourism |
| Mozambique |
Culture,
Information and Sport;
Transport, Communication and Meteorology |
| Namibia |
Legal
Affairs;
Marine Fisheries and Resources |
| South
Africa |
Finance
and Investment;
Health |
| Swaziland |
Human
Resources Department |
| Tanzania |
Industry
and Trade |
| Zambia |
Employment
and Labour;
Mining |
| Zimbabwe |
Crop
Production;
Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources |
| NB:
The DRC and Seychelles have no sectoral responsibilities |
|
