The current SADC was established in 1992, but its roots are much older. Its genesis has been closely linked to the struggle for independence from colonial powers and liberation from apartheid. Its origins lie in the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC), set up in 1980 as a development aid co-ordination mechanism. The Frontline States (FLS) also shaped important features of today’s SADC. Set up in 1975 as an informally constituted political grouping, the FLS comprised Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, and – from 1980 – Zimbabwe, ‘…with the objective of forcing an end to white minority rule in Southern Africa’...

The SADC summit decided in March 2001 on a series of far-reaching changes in SADC’s institutional framework and the structure for executing its 1992 mandate. These included changes in the governing structures at regional and national levels. The most radical changes concerned the operations of the secretariat itself. The 21 sectoral committees and commissions located in 12 SADC member countries, and responsible for planning and implementing SADC’s work in each sector, were to be closed down. The sector units were to be brought together in four clusters in an expanded and strengthened secretariat in Gaborone.

A major shift in the...

Restructuring of SADC is complete only in a formal sense. A number of obstacles will have to be overcome before the proper institutional mechanisms are in place. Under the old SADCC structure, the work suffered from a lack of a proper focus, many of the activities were national development projects and did not really have any regional scope, and their implementation was at best uneven. The new SADC Treaty, adopted in 1992, attempted to give the organisation a new focus based on integration and good governance. Regional policies and guidelines for action were developed by adopting a series of protocols...

SADC is an old institution – it turned 25 in 2005 and is thus one of the oldest regional communities on the continent. But SADC is still very much a regional community in the making. It has progressed rapidly at the formal levels of policies and agreements, but its institutions are still weak and the organisation has not made significant advances in the implementation of protocols and regional decisions.

In 2001, SADC approved an ambitious programme for a major overhaul of the organisation. Through institutional reform SADC hoped to be able to establish a more efficient and effective head office...