You would have been forgiven for thinking that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders’ summit in Durban this week was a motivational speakers’ convention. Speaker after speaker stood up to encourage the SADC bigwigs to wake up and use the region’s wealth to build vibrant economies and create jobs for their citizens.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, revelling in hosting the shindig, told the region’s leaders that the bloc needed to ignite manufacturing.
“We continue to procure services from elsewhere that our own people and businesses have the skills and capacity to provide,” he said. “The people of our region are asking us to deliver the dividend of economic liberation.”
SADC executive secretary Elias Magosi exhorted member states to stop exporting raw critical minerals and move towards beneficiation, manufacturing and industrialisation.
Yet, after all the fantastic displays and fine speeches, it’s extremely hard to see exactly what the SADC’s leaders have to offer that is new. After days of noisy blue lights clogging up eThekwini, they left without confronting the elephant in the room: the backward slide of democracy in the region, instability fuelled by Zimbabwe’s economic and political collapse, and the striking irrelevance of the SADC itself.
Instead of confronting the region’s problems openly and courageously, the SADC’s leaders popped the champagne and then headed home. Without confronting these problems, particularly Zimbabwe’s role in dragging the region down economically over the past 25 years, SADC summits and resolutions are just hot air. The bloc’s 400-million people will continue to be fed fine words without the urgently needed jobs and economic growth.
Ahead of the summit, ministry of international relations & co-operation spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told reporters that 30% of the world’s proven critical mineral reserves were found in the SADC region. The SADC also holds 50% of the world’s cobalt reserves and 20% of its graphite reserves. The region has 51-million more people than the US.
To exploit these riches and become the manufacturing powerhouse Ramaphosa speaks of, we need representative government, peace, security and stability across the region. This cannot be achieved unless, and until, we have democracy, security and stability in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Mozambique.
Anything between 4- and 7-million Zimbabweans have fled their country since the year 2000. They have fled a collapsing economy, hyperinflation, chronic unemployment, and political repression that has been a staple diet in the country for 26 years. This repression is the handiwork of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his predecessor, Robert Mugabe.
Zimbabwe’s political and economic refugees have strained neighbouring South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique. As if that’s not enough, Zimbabwe has run a largely unnoticed but canny campaign to keep “liberation parties” in power in neighbouring countries to ensure that they support its anti-democratic endeavours and keep Zanu-PF in power.
That is why this past week you will have heard nothing about the fact that Mnangagwa has now extended his term in office to 2030 by ramming highly controversial constitutional amendments into law. Instead of stepping down next year, the 83-year-old Mnangagwa will now enjoy power for an additional two years. In terms of his new laws, in 2030 he will only need his party to endorse him. He will then stay for another seven years. His predecessor Mugabe was in power for a solid 37 years.
Zimbabwe is merely the most high-profile of the SADC’s problematic members being treated with kid gloves.
In Mozambique in 2024, about 400 people died in post-election violence. The SADC did nothing except manoeuvre to keep the liberation movement, Frelimo [in office since 1975], in power.
In Tanzania last year, human rights groups say more than 1,000 people were killed by government forces in a crackdown on pro-democracy forces ahead of and after discredited elections won in a landslide by President Samia Suluhu Hassan. She won 97.6% of votes cast. Instead of condemning the violence, the SADC congratulated Hassan on her election.
It tells you something about the SADC that it is sidelined from the talks to bring peace to the DRC, a key member state. The shaky peace deal between the DRC and the M23 rebel group was brokered by the state of Qatar. Ongoing exchanges of prisoners and further talks are conducted by other bodies while the SADC is mostly a spectator.
This summit illustrates, once again, that Southern Africa’s problem is neither its people nor a lack of ideas or resources. It is lack of courageous leadership.
