SADC - Southern African Development Community

Created in August, 1992, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), previously known as Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) is a 14 member Regional Economic Community (REC) comprising of : Angola , Botswana , Democratic Republic of Congo , Lesotho , Madagascar , Malawi, Mauritius , Mozambique , Namibia , South Africa , Swaziland , Tanzania , Zambia , and Zimbabwe.

Madagascar is currently suspended due to the undue political processes that led to the president elect ceding power to the Military.

SADC secretariat offices are based in Gaborone, Botswana

Seychelles ceased to be a member of SADC on 30 June 2004. At the August 2004 SADC Summit  Madagascar obtained ‘candidate membership status’ for a period of one year. Rwanda also applied for SADC membership, but this was not considered by Council in August 2004. 

 Along with the Western CFA Zone, it is one of the important regional groupings in Africa. SADC’s main objectives are mostly economic, political, security and cultural. The Treaty principles (Article 4) commit SADC and its Member States to:

‘Sovereign equality of all member States; Human rights, democracy and the rule of law; Equity, balance and mutual benefit; Peaceful settlement of disputes.’

SADC’s main strategies are:

• Cooperation and / or integration among member states in a range of sectors and their markets, including transport, health, tourism, agriculture mining, and water, through legally binding protocols.
• Establishment of a Free Trade Area by 2008, completion of negotiations on a Customs Union by 2010 and a Common Market by 2015.

Recent developments have led to a restructuring of SADC institutions with the creation of a centralized Secretariat and four Directorates: Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment (TIFI); Infrastructure and Services; Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR); Social and Human Development and Special Programs.

A 15-yr Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) was developed to be  implemented in five-year phases. The RISDP was adopted by the SADC Summit which was held on 25-26 August 2003 in Dar-es- Salaam, Tanzania and SADC has 5-yr and 1-yr plans for implementation of the RISDP which have been developed, while linking it with a budgetary framework.

Amongst the latest progressive events has been SADC's participation in the SADC-COMESA-EAC Tripartite Summit held in Kampala, Uganda on October 22, 2008.

The milestone EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit is considered historic because for the first time, since the birth of the AU, key building blocks of the African Economic Community  met on how to integrate territories and moving towards deepening and widening integration within the overall Abuja Treaty for the establishment of the African Economic Community.