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3.2 Earlier Forms of Regionalism and the Development of Regional Integration in
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and assisting the ECOSOC in finding solutions. The ECA was made up of the newly independent countries in Africa. (Gruhn, 1985:24-25).
Despite the challenges experienced in early African regionalism, the continent managed to establish the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) in 1963, a regional grouping that has survived albeit through some transformation to the present African Union (AU) (Larson, 2006). One of the key founding leaders of the OAU, Kwame Nkrumah on 24 May 1964, made the following remarks which can help understand why the OAU was formed:
As I have said time and again the salvation of Africa lies in unity. Only a union government can safe guard the hard-won freedom of the various African states. Africa is rich, its resources are vast and yet African states are poor. It is only in a union government that we can find the capital to develop the immense economic resources of Africa. (Adejumobi 2008:3).
Two issues appear to be distinct in Nkrumah’s remarks. There was a need to collectively preserve the independence of the Africa countries and the desire to develop the African countries with a view to end poverty. The collective safe guarding of independence needed collective expression of the African interest to the World. Calls for a pan Africanist approach of “many voices” and one “vision”, as Said and Adebayo (2008) put it, had the ultimate objective of political renewal, reversal of the trend of socio-economic decline and marginalisation and mainstreaming Africa in the global political economy. With the majority of the African having been marginalised from participation in the mainstream economic activities of their countries, their chances of participating meaningfully in the global political economy were limited. Policies such as the African economic ethic of indigenisation, which later became common in most SADC states, were noted in the early stages of the formation of the Organisation of African Unity.
The OAU has had influence in the formation and shaping up of sub-regional groups in Africa.
For SADC the history of regionalism will not be complete without the role of the OAU. The strong desire to reverse the colonial ethic had notable relevance in defining regionalism in Southern Africa.
70 3.2.1 Evolution of SADC Integration
The OAU through its liberation committee was instrumental in the formation of the Front Line States (FLS) in Southern Africa. The FLS had interest in enhancing security in the region and to fight colonialism in Southern Africa. The earlier efforts by states in Southern Africa were focused on regional security and the liberation of countries which were still under colonial rule.
Ngoma (2005:2) observed that states in the Southern African region has since the time of the liberation struggles for independence in the 1970s and 1980s trying to develop a regional structure that ensures peace and security. This could have been a recognition that peace and security were essential for economic development. The early notable regional grouping was the Front Line States (FLS) whose main objective was to bring about independence and majority rule to Namibia and Zimbabwe.
As the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe was nearing the end, there was acknowledgement that long-term commitment by regional leaders was required in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. This observation led regional leaders to institutionalise the informal co-operation of the Front Line States. From the Front Line States the Southern African Development Co- ordinating Conference (SADCC) (Olusoji, 2003:272) was then formed by the Lusaka declaration on 01 April 1980 (Hwang 2006: 91). At the formation of SADCC there was explicit recognition that was given to economic factors as particularly important in removing the vulnerabilities and constraints of the region. These envisaged vulnerabilities related to the economic dependence on the apartheid South Africa (Ravenhill, 1985:218). Akomolafe (2003) also noted that SADCC was formed to help the independent states mitigate against political and economic hostility of the apartheid South Africa. Initially SADCC had ten countries namely, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Olusoji, 2003:272).
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) was formed in in Windhoek, Namibia in August 1992. This was through a declaration and treaty that was signed by heads of states.
The treaty became effective in September 1993 upon ratification into national laws by individual member states making SADC decisions, agreements and policies to become legally binding. The region then had the necessary legal framework to enforce its agreements, decisions and policies
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as well as to put in place measures against member states which violated the treaty (Olusoji, 2003:273). The later inclusion of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar into SADC grew the membership to fifteen (Economic Commission for Africa, 2006:38).
The Common Agenda of the 1992 SADC treaty outlines some of the objectives of the regional grouping as follows:
1. Achieve development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the people of Southern Africa and support the socially disadvantaged through regional integration.
2. Promote common political values, systems and shared values.
3. Promote self-sustaining development on the basis of collective self-reliance, and the interdependence of member states.
4. Achieve complementarity between national and regional strategies and programs.
5. Promote and maximise productive employment and utilisation of resources of the region.
6. Ensure that poverty eradication is addressed in all SADC activities and programmes.
7. Strengthen and consolidate the long standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the people of the Region (SADC, 2015a).
To achieve the objectives set out above among other issues SADC agreed to:
1. Harmonise political and socio-economic policies and plans of member states.
2. Encourage the people of the region and their institutions to take initiatives to develop economic, social and cultural ties across the region, and to participate fully in the implementation of the programmes and projects of SADC.
3. Develop policies aimed at the progressive elimination of obstacles to the free movement of capital and labour, goods and services, and of the people of the region generally, among member states.
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4. Improve economic management and performance through regional cooperation.
5. Secure international understanding, cooperation and support, and mobilise the inflow of public and private resources into the Region (SADC: 2015a).
These objectives defined SADC’s integration roadmap and they appear to embrace the old regionalism and new regionalism.
3.3 Regional Economic Integration and the African Economic Ethic of Indigenisation