Zanzibar Education Panel

INTRODUCTION
The southern Africa development community has been existence since 1980, when it was formed as a loose alliance of nine majority ruled states in southern Africa known as the southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), with the main aims of coordinating development project in order to lessen economic dependence on the then apartheid South Africa.

The founding members state were: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. SADC was formed in Lusaka, Zambia on April 1, 1980, following the adoption of the Lusaka Declaration.

The transformation of the organization from a coordinating conference into a Development Community (SADC) took place on August 17, 1992 in Windhoek, Namibia when the Deceleration and treaty was signed at the summit of Heads of state and government there by giving the organization a legal character. The member state are Angola, Botswana, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, SADC headquarters are in Gaborone, Botswana.

THE ORIGIN OF SADC
The Southern Africa Development conference (SADC) the forerunner of the SADC, the community was established in April 1980 by government of nine Southern Africa countries of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbwabwe.

The formation of SADC was the culmination of long process of consultations by the leaders of southern Africa, towards the end of the 1970’s it became clear to the leader of the region that just having a national flag and a national anthem would not meet the needs of the people for improved living standard.

Secondly, the positive experiences gained in working together  in the group of Frontline states, to advance the political struggle, had to be translated into broader co-operation in pursuit of economic and social development.

From 1977, active consultations in a meeting of foreign ministers of the frontline states in Gaborone, in May 1979, which called for a meeting of ministers responsible fro economic development. That meeting was subsequently converned in Arusha, Tanzania, in July 1979. The Arusha meeting led to the birth of the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference a year later.The SADC or the Conference was formed with four principal objectives, Namelly;

•  To reduce member states dependences, particularly on the then apartheid South Africa.
•  To implement programmers and projects with national and regional impact.
• To mobilize member states resources in the quest for collective self reliance .
• To secure international understanding and support.

These objectives were pursued with determination and vigour. Through SADC, the founding fathers sought first to demonstrate the tangible benefits of working together, and to cultivate a climate of confidence and trust among member states.

SADC has developed since then, to become an organization that has a Programme of Action, covering several broad economic and social sectors, namely, Energy, Tourism, Environment and land management, Water, Mining, Employment and labour, Culture, information and Sport and Transport and Communication.

Other sectors are finance and investments, Human Resource Development, Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Legal Affairs and Health. Sectors are each co-coordinated by a member state with some member states co-coordinating more than one sector.

Transformation from Conference to the Community.

The SADCC, the organization was transformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) with the signing of the Declaration and Treaty of SADC at their Summit in Windhoek, Namibia, on August 17, 1992.

The SADC leaders had come to realize that although the coordination conference had served them well and had demonstrated the crucial need to cooperate in their development efforts, time had come to give the organization a legal and more formal status.

There was also a need to shift the focus of the organization from coordination of development project to a more complex task of integrating the economies of member states. Hence the treaty is the blueprint for building community of Southern African states.This restricting was necessitated by the number of difficulties and constraints encountered in the process of moving  the organization from the a coordinating conference into a community. These include:
i. Inadequate institutional reforms to enable the effective transformation from SADCC to  SADC (the community)
ii. Furthermore’ the resources provision and the management system were not adequately addressed.

iii. Lack of synergy between the objective and strategies of the Treaty on one hand and the existing SADC Programme of Action (SPA) and the institutional framework on the other.

iv. Limited capacity to mobilize significant levels of the regions own resources for the implementation of it is framework.

v. the external financial over dependence of the SADC Programme of Action (SPA) to the tune of more than 180 percent, which compromises the Programme sustainability.