Region-Building and Peacebuilding in Southern Africa

The Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), Cape Town, South Africa, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) office in Gaborone, Botswana, hosted a two-day policy advisory group seminar in Gaborone, 19-20 September 2015, on “Region-Building and Peacebuilding in Southern Africa”.

The Botswana seminar assessed key issues on region-building and peacebuilding in Southern Africa, while analysing South Africa’s leadership role in the sub-region. The seminar was convened with about 30 mostly African policymakers, scholars, and civil society actors. Senior officials participated from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), and from the SADC region and donor governments.

The following 13 key policy recommendations emerged from the 
Gaborone policy advisory group seminar:

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<li>SADC needs to promote balanced and equitable development that has relevance to its 281 million citizens. The organisation must also return to implementation of community outreach projects. Member states must offer critical staff to improve the overall performance of implementation; monitoring and evaluation; and oversight, within the SADC secretariat</li>
<li>SADC states need to develop a viable regional strategy for beneficiation, value addition, and industrialisation. The organisation should consider regional integration as a socio-economic priority, and incorporate factors of complementarity, inclusivity, and equality into its integration model. Creating conditions for the free exchange of goods is critical, rather than just declaring a free trade area into existence, as SADC did in 2008. Trade liberalisation and developmental regionalism also need to be more closely sequenced across Southern Africa</li>
<li>a knowledge reference group should be established to integrate the main elements of SADC’s RISDP and SIPO. A National Security Policy framework is also needed across SADC countries to promote security sector governance and to integrate security sectors to ensure accountability and enhance confidence-building. A regional School of Diplomacy should be established to train SADC diplomats and other policymakers in order to pursue mutually beneficial sub-regional foreign policy goals</li>
<li>SADC member states must fund their own peace and security programmes, and rely less on external donors who may have different priorities. A more equitable division of responsibility is required in regional peacekeeping to reduce dependence on South Africa. An effective division of labour must also be fostered between SADC, the AU, and the UN</li>
<li>the research unit within the SADC secretariat needs to be strengthened to ensure effective policy planning, while the organisation should establish partnerships with centres of excellence and think tanks across the sub-region</li>
<li>coordination between the five directorates in the SADC secretariat needs urgent improvement, with the work-load shared proportionately within the organisation. SADC should consider increasing its permanent staffing within the secretariat, aligning staffing more effectively with programming, and establishing proper reporting systems</li>
<li>the SADC secretariat should participate actively in the activities of the SADC Parliamentary Forum which its members must be encouraged to transform into a sub-regional parliament. SADC should also devise a monitoring mechanism to measure progress in the implementation of its regional integration schemes. Sanctions must be imposed for noncompliance of SADC decisions</li>
<li>SADC National Committees need to be reformulated to capacitate them in order to make them more relevant and effective. Political parties in SADC are in urgent need of internal democratisation, and also require accountability mechanisms in governance and funding</li>
<li>deepening of a democratic culture is required within SADC. Civil society activists should not adopt an instinctively confrontational approach towards national governments, and must find ways to cooperate with them, where appropriate. Decentralisation and strengthening of local governance is also essential to ensuring popular participation in governance and empowering local communities. SADC should develop a sense of regional identity and prioritise common values</li>
<li>SACU members need to be capacitated to devise alternative domestic revenue streams, given their over-reliance on the organisation’s customs generated income. SACU should create a regional development fund rather than just transferring money through a revenue distribution process. There is also an urgent need to bridge the disparity of development and production capacities among SACU’s members, and a mechanism should be created for monitoring the implementation of agreements signed by sub-regional governments</li>
<li>the South African government must develop a clear vision for regional integration, regulate the role of its corporate sector, and build domestic constituencies that promote regional integration in the sub-region. South Africa should use its strategic partnership with Angola to ensure a more effective SADC. Tshwane (Pretoria) must also be more active within SADC structures</li>
<li>UNECA should share lessons from its monitoring system on regional integration with the SADC secretariat. It should help to harmonise the industrialisation plans of SADC and COMESA, which it is currently supporting separately. Southern Africa must also learn lessons from West African civil society engagement with ECOWAS in areas of early warning and governance.</li>
<li>The issue of migration – both within SADC and to Europe – needs urgent prioritisation. An evolving AU migration policy, which has adopted a developmental approach, could provide useful lessons. Obstacles to the free movement of people must also be removed if regional integration is to succeed. South Africa should subordinate its national interests to broader interests in areas such as immigration and industrialisation. South Africa and Lesotho should also consider establishing a future confederation, with South Africa removing border controls between the two countries</li>
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