The year 2004 is ending the way it started, with southern Africa enjoying unparalleled peace, political stability and security, while poverty reduction remains top of the agenda for the region. Munetsi Madakufamba and Chengetai Madziwa trace highlights of SADC’s year 2004.

When SADC Executive Secretary Prega Ramsamy outlined the agenda for 2004 at the end of the previous year, he singled out poverty reduction goals, which he said were lagging behind the minimum targets.

Ramsamy called for strategies to unlock the resource and capacity constraints that have contributed to the lack of progress toward UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Poverty in SADC has a cyclical relationship to drought and floods, insecurity and conflicts, and HIV and AIDS, as well as malaria and other communicable diseases. These formed the priorities for 2004, as did issues of gender equality, energy, water and other basic socio-economic requirements necessary for regional development and integration in SADC.

In pursuit of the regional agenda, a milestone was the launch in March of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), which is the blueprint for poverty eradication. RISDP is the region’s adaptation and domestication of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the MDGs.

The historic blueprint will guide SADC for the next 15 years in all key areas of regional integration and underpins the aspirations of the four directorates that have been established at the SADC Secretariat in Botswana, emerging from four years of painstaking restructuring.

The RISDP was launched by Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who held the rotating SADC chair earlier this year. His term was marked by a clear agenda for results-based regional integration based on time-bound targets. He spoke consistently and strongly about regional integration and its relevance to poverty eradication.

He reminded western countries that southern Africa’s democracy had come of age and that its member states are capable of handling their own affairs. The successful elections in South Africa in April, Malawi in May, Botswana in October and Namibia in November, as well as preparations in Mozambique for December, have demonstrated a well-entrenched universal suffrage, in a culture of political pluralism.

The unanimous adoption in August of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections by the SADC Summit in Mauritius further strengthened the region’s democratisation process.

The guidelines, upon which elections in SADC are now assessed, are a bold show of the unity that exists in the region and common destiny that its member states aspire to.

Another milestone was the adoption, and now implementation, of the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in May 2004 by an Extra-Ordinary SADC Summit in Tanzania, a multi-sectoral strategy for sustainable food security.

SADC leaders reaffirmed their commitment to accelerate agricultural development, upon which 70 percent of the population of the region depends for food, income and employment. The declaration contains short, medium and long term strategies and targets.

The tone was set by an impassioned opening address by the host and then SADC chairperson, President Mkapa, who urged his colleagues to ensure that the region can feed itself on a sustainable basis. Mkapa said bluntly, “unless we, the leaders of SADC, feel ashamed of having to beg for food – sometimes receiving it with all manner of conditions – we cannot bring honour to our countries. Let us work together to bring honour, not shame to independent southern Africa.”

Prime Minister Paul Berenger of Mauritius, who took over the SADC chair for the 2004-2005 term, emphasised the need for an action-oriented approach in dealing with the region’s challenges. He committed to operationalising the RISDP and continuing with Mkapa’s agenda for addressing food security, HIV and AIDS, and conflicts and insecurity.

He also stressed the need to complete the restructuring process and implement SADC protocols.

The SADC Trade Protocol, one of the most important of SADC’s 30 legal instruments has undergone a mid-term review during the year, assessing progress since its implementation in 2000. The results of this exercise are expected in the New Year.

The Trade Protocol is the legal framework within which SADC is pursuing its target of establishing a Free Trade Area by 2008 and a Customs Union by 2010.

The launch of the Zambezi Watercourse Commission in July marked a significant step in the implementation of the Protocol on Shared Watercourses, which was signed in 1995, revised in 2000 and came into force in 2003.

The Protocol on Energy was given a boost with the approval in October by energy ministers and chief executives of power utilities from Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia and South Africa to form a company to operate the Western Power Corridor. A stakeholders agreement is to be signed before year end.

SADC will be hoping to step up implementation of its protocols if it is to emerge as a strong building block of NEPAD, which has now completed its first three formative years. A long list of projects have been submitted by SADC to NEPAD to rally financial support.

SADC is well placed to push its agenda at the AU and NEPAD. The Pan African Parliament, which was launched this year, and the NEPAD Secretariat are hosted by the region, both in South Africa.

In September, the AU’s Pan African Parliament held its first regular assembly with its 265 members from all over Africa. The parliament discussed the legalities, rules and establishment of committees that will guide its response to the challenges on the continent.

And at the top of those challenges is poverty eradication.

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