oa Africa Insight - The Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC): Past and future

Abstract

The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) celebrated its tenth anniversary last year, moving its secretariat in Gaborone to an impressive new building and admitting Namibia as its tenth member-state. This would therefore seem an appropriate time to consider what this grouping has achieved, where its shortcomings are and what its future holds. Will the SADCC become obsolete - as suggested by many observers - giving way to a new form of regionalization dominated by South Africa? Will South African guns and regional destabilization simply be replaced by ""order-books""1 and the ""mind of confrontation"" remain intact? Or will a democratic South Africa become the eleventh SADCC member and, if so, under what conditions and with what effects on regional economic and political relations?