Inter Press Service - August 13, 2001
Hazwell Kanjaye

The three-day meeting, which is being attended by ten SADC leaders, began Sunday in Blantyre, the business capital of Malawi.

SADC groups South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Seychelles, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

But leaders of Mauritius, Seychelles, Angola and the DRC are not attending the meeting.

HIV/AIDS is one of the top issues on the summit's agenda. "As we are meeting today, HIV/AIDS continues to pause major threats to the development of our region. The reality is that today we have in the region a traumatic situation where either grandparents or children head households," said President Sam Nujoma of Namibia as he opened the summit.

Nujoma, who is the body's chairperson, said about 40 percent of SADC's 195 million people are trapped in extreme poverty, while HIV/AIDS has become the most critical development challenge, eroding the region's most productive citizens.

In diamond-rich Botswana, for example, 35 percent of persons aged 15-49 are HIV-positive, while the region's economic giant South Africa has more HIV-positive people than any country in the world - about four million people.

"Models suggest that in the worst affected countries 1-2 percentage points will be shaved off per capita growth in the coming years," the United Nations says in a new report entitled 'HIV/AID: Implications for Poverty Reduction'.

"This means that after two decades, many economies will be about 20-40 percent smaller than they would have been in the absence of AIDS," it adds.

The pandemic is shaving up to two percentage points off annual economic growth in many SADC countries and will shrink total Gross National Product (GNP) of many of the countries up to 40 percent within 20 years.

"This is certainly an unacceptable situation and more should be done to reverse the trend," said SADC executive secretary Prega Ramsamy, while Nujoma called for increased investment in research for vaccine, generic drugs, treatment and care for those living with the disease.

But the heavy debt, collectively estimated at 80.2 billion U.S. dollars in 1999, limits the region's capacity to fight the disease. Zambia, for example, where one in five adults have HIV, is spending 176 million dollars annually on debt servicing, compared to 76 million dollars on health.

Overseas aid to the SADC region has fallen drastically while foreign direct investment is down from 5.3 billion dollars in 1999 to 3.9 billion dollars in 2000, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Unfair trade practices of developed countries are also depriving the region of potential export revenues.

In a bid to transform the bloc into a vibrant economic and political grouping and a player in the world economic arena, the leaders are expected to push for an accelerated implementation of the SADC Trade Protocol that came into effect in September 2000.

Acceded by all members except the DRC, Angola and Seychelles, the protocol provides for a symmetrical process of tariff reduction on intra-region trade, leading to the establishment of a free trade zone in 2008.

"Through the SADC Trade Protocol, we hope to increase intra- regional trade from the current estimated figure 22 percent to 35 percent by the year 2005," said Nujoma.

However, development experts warn against high expectations. The Zimbabwe-based Southern African Regional Institute for Policy Studies (SARIPS), for example, contends that the protocol is a shallow instrument for promoting "deep" regional integration.

The protocol, it argues, has weak provisions on anti-dumping and does not give enough guarantees to protecting monopolies and cartels from one part of the sub-region to collude and keep out imports from other parts or dump goods at cheap prices.

"Deep integration refers to eliminating both border restrictions and constraints that operate within countries such as monopolies, taxation, investment licensing and regulations, and financial controls," it says.

The protocol will expand regional income by 0.33 percent, while employment and the region's GDP - estimated at 186 billion dollars in 1998 -- will increase by one percent, according to the institute. The region accounts for less than one per cent of the world GDP, projected at 28,228 billion dollars in 1998, says SARIPS.

While welcoming macro-economic fundamentals and relatively good infrastructure many SADC countries have put in place, Ramsamy said low domestic savings in a majority of member countries continue to limit economic growth and investment.

"Investment largely depends on the level of domestic savings but it is disheartening to note that the current rate of domestic savings in the majority of member states is very low," he said.

According to Ramsamy, regional domestic savings fell from 26.85 percent of GDP to 16.25 in 1990 before declining further to 12.6 percent of GDP in 1999.

Although the region's economy grew by at 3.4 percent in 2000, up from 1.8 percent in 1999, it is also too low when compared to the World Bank minimum of six percent to have an impact on poverty, he said.

"We need to develop an explicit regional poverty reduction strategy and this should be accorded top priority within the regional macro-economic framework," said Ramsamy.

A review of the conflict in Angola and the DRC is also high on the summit's agenda.

"Our people are fed up with these wars. The conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Angola are retrogressive," said Malawi president Bakili Muluzi who is also vice chair of the SADC.

"The region ought to move from a culture of ethnic hatred, conflict and war to a culture of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, tolerance and building bridges of co-operation. Southern Africa must stand out as one part of the continent where wars have become unfashionable," said Muluzi.

It is, however, not clear whether the leaders will discuss Zimbabwe's land reform crisis or Swaziland's new constitution that gives absolute powers to the monarchy at a time the region is championing participatory and democratic governance.

Although the leaders may discuss the region's cereal deficit of about 3.8 million metric tones, agriculture experts indicate that financing for country requirements will be left to individual countries.

Namibia's trade and tourism minister, Hidipo Hamutenya, who prepared the agenda for the heads of state and government summit, said the leaders also will discuss plans to restructure the organisation into a centralised entity with a strong secretariat in charge of all departments and directorates.

Since its establishment over 20 years ago, SADC has kept a secretariat in Gaborone, Botswana and had all its 21 structures scattered all over the region with each country managing a sector from its capital. The structures will now be amalgamated into four directorates.

Nujoma said the restructuring aims to make SADC "more efficient, effective, appropriate, have a common agenda, prioritise its activities and most of all become financially viable". (END/IPS/AF/IP/HK/MN/01)
010813
IP010804

Copyright ©1990, 2000. ÆGIS. All materials appearing on ÆGIS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of ÆGIS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. Feedback/Contact Us.