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Southern African Development Community (SADC)
SADC-only (yellow) and SADC+SACU members
Headquarters		Gaborone, Botswana
Working languages		English, French, Portuguese
Membership		15 African states
Leaders
-	Secretary General	Tomaz Salomão
Establishment
-	as the SADCC	April 1, 1980
-	as the SADC	August 17, 1992
Website http://www.sadc.int

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization. It furthers socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security cooperation among 15 southern African countries. It complements the role of the African Union.

Contents 1 History 2 Member states 3 Challenges facing member countries 4 Aims of the SADC 5 SADC structure and decision-making procedures 6 SADC in practice 7 Flag 8 Leaders 8.1 Chairman 8.2 Secretaries-General 9 Comparison with other regional blocs 10 Timeline 10.1 2007 11 See also 12 References 13 External links

The origins of SADC lie in the 1960s and 1970s, when the leaders of majority-ruled countries and national liberation movements coordinated their political, diplomatic and military struggles to bring an end to colonial and white-minority rule in southern Africa. The immediate forerunner of the political and security cooperation leg of today's SADC was the informal Front Line States (FLS) grouping. It was formed in the mid-1970s.

The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was the forerunner of the socio-economic cooperation leg of today's SADC. The adoption by nine majority-ruled southern African countries of the Lusaka declaration on 1 April 1980 paved the way for the formal establishment of SADCC in July 1981.

The membership of the FLS and SADCC sometimes differed.

SADCC was transformed into SADC on 17 August 1992, with the adoption by the founding members of SADCC and newly independent Namibia of the Windhoek declaration and treaty establishing SADC. The 1992 SADC provided for both socio-economic cooperation and political and security cooperation. In reality, the FLS was dissolved only in 1994, after South Africa's first democratic elections. Subsequent efforts to place political and security cooperation on a firm institutional footing under SADC's umbrella failed.

On 14 August 2001 the 1992 SADC treaty was amended. The amendment heralded the overhaul of the structures, policies and procedures of SADC, a process which is ongoing. One of the changes is that political and security cooperation is institutionalised in the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS). One of the principal SADC bodies, it is subject to the oversight of the organisation's supreme body, the Summit, which comprises the heads of state or government.

The headquarters of SADC is in Gaborone, Botswana.

SADC has 15 member states, namely:

•  Angola
•  Botswana
•  Lesotho
•  Malawi
•  Mozambique
•  Swaziland
•  Tanzania
•  Zambia
•  Zimbabwe
•  Namibia - since 31 March 1990 (since independence)
•  South Africa - since 30 August 1994
•  Mauritius - since 28 August 1995
•  Democratic Republic of the Congo - since 8 September 1997
•  Madagascar - since 18 August 2005
•  Seychelles - since 15 August 2007

 Seychelles had also previously been a member of SADC from 8 September 1997 until 1 July 2004.

SADC countries face many social, development, economic, trade, education, health, diplomatic, defence, security and political challenges. Some of these challenges cannot be tackled effectively by individual members. Cattle diseases and organised-crime gangs know no boundaries. War in one country can suck in its neighbours and damage their economies. The sustainable development that trade could bring is threatened by the existence of different product standards and tariff regimes, weak customs infrastructure and bad roads. The socio-economic and political and security cooperation aims of SADC are equally wide-ranging, and intended to address the various common challenges.

SADC's aims are set out in different sources. The sources include the treaty establishing the organisation (SADC treaty); various protocols (other SADC treaties, such as the corruption protocol, the firearms protocol, the OPDS protocol, the health protocol and the education protocol); development and cooperation plans such as the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) and the Strategic Indicative Plan of the Organ (SIPO); and declarations such as those on HIV and AIDS and food security. Not all of the pre-2001 treaties and plans have been harmonised with the more detailed and recent plans such as the RISDP and SIPO.

In some areas, mere coordination of national activities and policies is the aim of cooperation. In others, the member states aim at more far-reaching forms of cooperation. For example, the members largely aim to coordinate their foreign policies, but they aim to harmonise their trade and economic policies with a view to one day establishing a common market with common regulatory institutions.

The organisation has eight principal bodies:

• The Summit, comprising heads of state or heads of government, are at the top.
• OPDS, the
• Council of Ministers,
• Tribunal,
• SADC National Committees (SNCs), and the
• Secretariat.

Except for the Tribunal (based in Windhoek, Namibia), SNCs and Secretariat, decision-making is by consensus.

SADC is a weak organisation. It is under-resourced, and the member states are not happy to give it the powers that they agreed to give it when they launched the overhaul of the organisation in 2001.^{[citation needed]}

One significant challenge is that member states also participate in other regional economic cooperation schemes and regional political and security cooperation schemes that may compete with or undermine SADC's aims. For example, South Africa and Botswana both belong to the Southern Africa Customs Union, Zambia is a part of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and Tanzania is a member of the East African Community.

The flag of the organization came from the people of the member countries; a competition was held to design a new flag and in 1995 the new design was chosen. The new flag has a navy blue field with a green circle in the centre, and the SADC logo is in the centre of the green circle. In the official description of the flag, the blue symbolises the sky and ocean that bring water and life, and the green represents the rich flora and fauna. The region's rich gold wealth is represented in the colour of the lettering. The flag was first used in the 1995 SADC Summit at the World Trade Centre in Johannesburg.

• Levy Mwanawasa (c2007)

• Kaire Mbuende (1994-2001)
• Prega Ramsamy (2001-present)

African Economic Community Pillars regional blocs (REC) Area (km²) Population GDP (PPP) ($US) Member states in millions per capita AEC 29,910,442 853,520,010 2,053,706 2,406 53 ECOWAS 5,112,903 251,646,263 342,519 1,361 15 ECCAS 6,667,421 121,245,958 175,928 1,451 11 SADC 9,882,959 233,944,179 737,335 3,152 15 EAC 1,817,945 124,858,568 104,239 1,065 5 COMESA 12,873,957 406,102,471 735,599 1,811 20 IGAD 5,233,604 187,969,775 225,049 1,197 7 Western Sahara 3 266,000 273,008  ?  ? N/A 4 Other African blocs Area (km²) Population GDP (PPP) ($US) Member states in millions per capita CEMAC 1 3,020,142 34,970,529 85,136 2,435 6 SACU 1 2,693,418 51,055,878 541,433 10,605 5 UEMOA 1 3,505,375 80,865,222 101,640 1,257 8 UMA 2 5,782,140 84,185,073 491,276 5,836 5 Agadir 1,703,910 126,066,286 513,674 4,075 4 1 Economic bloc inside a pillar REC 2 Proposed for pillar REC, but objecting participation 3 The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is a signatory to the AEC, but not participating in any bloc yet 4 Majority under military occupation by Morocco; some territory administered by the SADR      smallest value among the blocs compared      largest value among the blocs compared During 2004. Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database This box: view • talk • edit

This article or section needs to be updated. Parts of this article or section are no longer up to date. Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished. Most active regional blocs as of 2004 Regional bloc1 Area (km²) Population GDP (PPP) ($US) Member states1 in millions per capita Agadir 1,703,910 126,066,286 513,674 4,075 4 AU 29,797,500 897,548,804 1,515,000 1,896 53 ASEAN 4,400,000 553,900,000 2,172,000 4,044 10 CACM 422,614 37,816,598 159,536 4,219 5 CARICOM 462,344 14,565,083 64,219 4,409 (14+1)3 CCASG / GCC 2,285,844 35,869,438 536,223 14,949 6 CEFTA 298,148 28,929,682 222,041 7,675 (7+1)3 EU 4,325,675 496,198,605 12,025,415 24,235 27 EurAsEC 20,789,100 208,067,618 1,689,137 8,118 6 EFTA 529,600 12,233,467 471,547 38,546 4 GUAM 810,506 63,764,600 456,173 7,154 4 NAFTA 21,588,638 430,495,039 15,279,000 35,491 3 PARTA 528,151 7,810,905 23,074 2,954 (14+2)3 SAARC 5,136,740 1,467,255,669 4,074,031 2,777 8 Unasur / Unasul 17,339,153 370,158,470 2,868,430 7,749 12 UN and countries for reference2 Area (km²) Population GDP (PPP) ($US) Units4 in millions per capita UN 133,178,011 6,411,682,270 55,167,630 8,604 192 Brazil 8,514,877 188,078,261 1,594,482 9,108 27 Canada 9,984,670 32,507,874 1,165,000 35,200 13 India 3,287,590 1,102,600,000 4,042,000 3,700 35 Japan 377,873 128,085,000 4,220,000 33,100 47 PR China5 9,596,960 1,306,847,624 10,000,000 7,600 33 Russia 17,075,200 143,782,338 1,723,000 12,100 89 USA 9,631,418 300,000,000 12,980,000 43,500 50 Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database. Legend      smallest value among the blocs compared     largest value among the blocs compared Footnotes 1 Including data only for full and most active members. 2 Including the largest five countries by area, population and GDP (PPP), but not #4 in population or #5 in GDP (PPP). 3 Including non-sovereign autonomous areas of other states. 4 Members or administrative divisions. 5 Data for the People's Republic of China does not include Hong Kong, Macau, or regions administered    by the Republic of China (Taiwan). This box: view • talk • edit

• 2 November - rail link from Chipita to Mpika proposed, providing shorter access to sea at Nacala. ^[1]

• List of Trade blocs
• Southern African Customs Union (SACU)
• Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)
• East African Community (EAC)
• Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)

• Gabriël Oosthuizen, The Southern African Development Community: The organisation, its history, policies and prospects. Institute for Global Dialogue: Midrand, South Africa, 2006.
• John McCormick, The European Union: Politics and Policies. Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado, 2004.
• Ramsamy, Prega 2003 Global partnership for Africa. Presentation at The human rights conference on global partnerships for Africa’s development, Gaborone: SADC

1. ^ http://railwaysafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1874&Itemid=35

• Southern African Development Community Official Web Site
  • Official SADC Trade, Industry and Investment Review
  • Committee of Central Bank Governors in the SADC
  • SADC Lawyers' Association
  • SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme
  • Electoral Commissions Forum
  • SADC Parliamentary Forum
• SADC Free Trade Agreement

v • d • e Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Angola · Botswana · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Lesotho · Madagascar · Malawi · Mauritius · Mozambique · Namibia · Seychelles · South Africa · Swaziland · Tanzania · Zambia · Zimbabwe