Another hollow Sadc summit

THE Southern African Development Community (Sadc) heads of state summit that took place at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, on Sunday and Monday was billed as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the dismantling of apartheid, a political system that had a profoundly negative effect on the entire region.

Perversely, however, the agenda and proceedings served largely to highlight just how little has changed for the better in many of the former “frontline states”, especially host Zimbabwe but also Swaziland and Lesotho, among others. And little emerged from the meeting to convince observers real economic or political change is finally in the air.

It did not help that the summit was hosted in Zimbabwe, which, in sharp contrast to the plush surrounds of the Elephant Hills resort, is as close to being a failed state as any in the region has yet come. Nor that the chairman of the 15-nation grouping for the coming year will be the man largely responsible for that relentless economic destruction and political repression, the 90-year-old President Robert Mugabe.

Try as one might, it is hard to take seriously the various resolutions and protocols adopted — or carefully avoided, in some cases — when the theme of the summit was so clearly dictated by the Zimbabwean government rather than reflecting the needs and priorities of the region.

There is nothing overtly objectionable about “Sadc Strategy for Economic Transformation: Leveraging the Region’s Diverse Resources for Sustainable Economic and Social Development through Beneficiation and Value Addition” other than that it is meaningless jargon — and that it just happens to mirror the host’s country’s latest economic development blueprint.

The fourth stage of Zimbabwe’s Agenda for Sustainable Socioeconomic Transformation (Zim Asset), which was developed from Zanu (PF)’s 2013 election manifesto, covers “value addition and beneficiation” of human and natural resources through indigenisation, empowerment and employment creation. But God forbid any other country in the region follow the Zimbabwean example of how to manage an economy, reduce poverty and support basic human rights.

Fortunately, there is little sign of any other Southern African state hurrying to impose Zimbabwean-style 51% indigenous ownership policies, although some in the South African private security industry may dispute that.

And the economic resolutions and industrial development programmes that were adopted by the summit were so vague that it is unlikely any will be implemented in our lifetimes. It is all very well for the region’s leaders to solemnly agree that industrialisation should be at the centre of the community’s economic agenda, but they will not make it happen by executing land grabs, stealing elections or forcing foreign investors to hand over control of their businesses to locals at fire-sale prices.

The upshot is that everyone will return home and go about their business as before, as they have after just about every Sadc heads of state summit for the past 34 years.

This was apparent even before the summit had ended, when President Jacob Zuma and his Namibian counterpart, Hifikepunye Pohamba, declined to sign the protocol on trade in services, earning Mr Mugabe’s ire.

The protocol provides for the progressive removal of barriers to the free movement of service providers in the region, the implications of which the two leaders apparently need more time to consider.

Meanwhile, poverty continues to rise in the region, with almost half of its 277-million inhabitants living on less than $1 a day, political repression remains rife in member states such as Swaziland — and Mr Mugabe is now next in line to chair the African Union.