SADC Regional Human Development Report 2000: challenges and opportunities for regional integration. Published by UNDP and SAPES Trust, Harare, 2001 
Southern Africa has enormous potential for promoting human development through deep integration of its economies. This is the main conclusion of a recently published SADC Regional Human Development Report 2000. 
   The report recalls that the 14 SADC member states have a combined population of 193.5 million people, likely to rise to 267.8 million by 2015. The region makes up some 31 percent of the total African land mass, with a wealth of natural and mineral resources.
   The estimates are that less than 20 percent of the region’s arable land is under cultivation and that only 10 percent of the water available is used for irrigation. There is enormous potential to increase the area that is under agricultural production. It is estimated that only seven percent of the region’s hydroelectric potential of 142,000 megawatts is being exploited. 
   The region also has extensive mineral resources, although 

most of them are currently exported in raw form. 
   For several years after the establishment of SADC, intra-regional trade was less than five percent of the total trade in the region. During the late 1980s and 1990s, intra-regional trade steadily increased, not least due to the entry into SADC of five new members - Namibia, South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
   Total intra-SADC trade nearly dou-bled between 1990 and 1997, and there is wide scope for further increases, especially between South Africa and other member countries. 
   A second area of opportunity is that of improving infrastructure. The report singles out information and communications technologies as a key potential sector for creating new economic opportunities, providing information more cheaply and raising productivity. 
   So far, the report points out, many SADC countries have failed to benefit from the new information technologies because of generally low levels of investment, inadequate skills, a pattern of small-scale firms based in the rural areas and few businesses engaged in the information and communications sectors. 
   The report also underlines the importance of the various “spatial 

development initiatives” in the region, whether designed to benefit individual countries, bilateral ventures or development initiatives involving a number of countries such as the Lobito Development Corridor (Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia); the OkavangoUpper Zambezi Tourism Initiative (Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe); and the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiatives (Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland). 
   The final area of opportunity identified in the SADC Regional Human Development Report 2000 is that of monetary co-operation and harmonization that can create a favourable environment for the integration of national economies. Opinions differ as to whether the goal should be full monetary union, or the more limited options of limited currency convertibility or a fixed exchange rate union, but experts agree on the need for harmonization of monetary and fiscal policies. The report cautions however that for SADC to seize the various opportunities, there is need to replace shallow integration with deep integration. Shallow integration refers to eliminating border restrictions such as tariffs and quotas, leaving internal barriers intact. (Review by SAPES)

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