National interests hamper regional projects
Staff Writer | Tuesday December 12, 2017 17:02
When addressing participants at a workshop on “Development Policies for Sustainable Economic Growth in Southern Africa” held in Dar es Salaam recently, she said that since independence Africa has not witnessed satisfactory growth because of this preference.
She said that African countries have attempted to industrialise using a number of strategies, and have amongst other strategies, embraced regional integration; where neighbouring states enter into regional cooperation agreements in order to enhance their cooperation.
“The operationalization of regional cooperation agreements are done through common institutions, policies and rules, as important components of regional cooperation development strategies, primarily driven by the economic rationale of overcoming the constraint of small and fractured economies working in isolation.
Several pan-African organisations have over the years been working towards deepening economic, social and political cooperation and integration. The level of success has, however been hampered by the tendency to advance national interests at the expense of wider benefits to be derived from regional cooperation and integration,” she said.
She cautioned that effective integration requires commitment by member states, and as such, policy coherence in order to ensure that countries systematically promote mutually reinforcing policy actions across government, departments, and agencies, that create increased opportunities, and synergies towards achieving the agreed and intended objectives.
“Recognising the importance of Regional Integration, and with a view to achieve the benefits of regional integration, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries signed the SADC Treaty in 1992. In order to implement the Treaty, SADC developed the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), a comprehensive development and implementation framework aimed at guiding the Regional Integration agenda of SADC over a period of 15 years (2005-2020),” she said.
She added that in 2000, the region adopted the SADC Protocol on Trade, which aimed, among others, to establish a Free Trade Area in the SADC region, to liberalise intra-regional trade in goods and services, ensure efficient production; contribute towards the improvement of the climate for domestic, cross-border and foreign investment, and enhance economic development, diversification and industrialisation of the region.
“While the SADC Free Trade Area (FTA) has facilitated growth in SADC intra-trade since its establishment, the growth has been modest, rising from 15.2% of total exports in 2007 to 24.9% in 2016 and from 18.2% of total imports in 2007 to 21.2% in 2016”.
Dr Lawrence Tax stated that in 2014, the SADC Summit made an analysis of the programme and came to conclusion that, without the required mechanisms to stimulate capacity to produce, compete and trade effectively; benefits from the SADC FTA will remain minimal, and therefore resolved to push industrialisation, through beneficiation, value addition and value chains.
“Industrialisation is expected to complement other development strategies and be the engine for inclusive growth, aimed at fostering economic diversification and structural transformation in the SADC region. It is against this background that SADC has prioritised industrial development as a pillar for SADC development and regional integration in pursuit of technological and socio-economic transformation. In this regards, SADC also recognises the importance of value chains development in fostering industrialisation.”
To this end, the SADC adopted the Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap 2015 – 2063, which has a long-term perspective, and is aligned to national, regional, continental and international dimensions. The Strategy recognises that for trade liberalisation to contribute to sustainable and equitable development, and thus to poverty reduction, it must be complimented by the requisite capacities to produce, and to trade efficiently and effectively. The Strategy recognises the important role that industrialisation is bound to play in technological and economic transformation, modernisation, skills development, science and technology, financial strengthening and deepening of regional integration, as well as facilitating the private sector as a critical partner.
She said that the Strategy is anchored on three pillars namely: industrialisation as champion of economic and technological transformation; competitiveness as an active process to move from comparative advantage to competitive edge; and regional integration and geography as the context for industrial development and economic prosperity. Since it’s the adoption of the Industrialisation Strategy, industrialisation remains the main area of focus and priority of SADC, and the region has identified three priority sectors to develop value chains, namely: agro-processing, mineral beneficiation; and pharmaceuticals.