Lack of political will derails Sadc integration

THE year was 1992, the place, Windhoek, Namibia. Ten Southern African Heads of State and Government gathered to sign the Treaty of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This organisation was the successor to the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) which had been established in 1980. SADCC was an institution formed to advance the cause of national political liberation in Southern Africa as well as reduce dependence particularly on the then apartheid South Africa.

SADC, on the other hand, was seen as the vehicle with which to drive the regional integration agenda with a special focus on the region’s economic development.

In the preamble of the SADC Treaty, the Heads of State mentioned that they were conscious of their duty “to promote the interdependence and integration of our national economies for the harmonious, balance and equitable development of the region”.

With this in mind in 2004 SADC launched the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP). This was a 15-year plan to be implemented between 2005 and 2020 and was set to provide “a comprehensive development agenda for socio-economic development policies in the SADC region”.

In the 13 years between the transformation of the SADCC to SADC and the initiation of the RISDP, the regional body grew its membership from 10 to 15 countries with South Africa joining in 1994, Mauritius in 1995, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Seychelles in 1998 and Madagascar in 2005.

The push for regional integration seemed to be taking proper shape and the RISDP was to be the implementation framework guiding the process for the next 15 years.

Under the plan were outlined specific integration milestones that would see SADC become a full economic union with a single currency by the year 2018.

The first milestone was the formation of a Free Trade Area to support inter-regional trade by the year 2008. Next on the plan was the establishment, by 2010, of a Customs Union with common external tariffs for the Free Trade Area.

Following on from this SADC was supposed to have a Common Market in 2015, by agreeing common policies on production regulation.

This year, 2016, SADC was meant to attain a Monetary Union through macro-economic convergence and finally adopt a single currency in 2018, turning the region into an Economic Union.

Aside from the creation of Free Trade Area in 2008, most of the other milestones have been missed completely and it is evident that by 2020 SADC would have failed to implement the RISDP.

In fact, while the Free Trade Area was created in 2008, Angola, DRC and Seychelles remain outside of it, while Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe at some point fell behind with the implementation of their tariff commitments.

The Free Trade Area was supposed to support and improve inter-regional trade. However, this too has been largely unsuccessful as inter-regional trade remains as low as 10 percent for all 15 countries.

The second milestone that SADC was supposed to meet in 2013 was the establishment of a Customs Union. This has failed to take shape due to constraints in the SADC Secretariat.

Another major challenge, according to SADC, was the establishment of a single Common External Tariff which is complicated by the fact that within SADC there are currently 11 individual tariff policies that will need to converge into a single and uniform tariff regime.

Without the Customs Union in place every other milestone is unattainable and SADC remains a largely ineffective organisation in bringing about the regional integration agenda.

What seems to be a major hurdle limiting the RISDP and impeding regional integration is the lack of political will from the SADC 15 member states. While the SADC Secretariat has a comprehensive strategic plan which it follows, the relative milestones cannot be achieved without the buy-in of the member states.

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