The curtain came down at the 34th Annual Summit of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) with special emphasis on the importance of beneficiation of exports.

The Summit was held under the theme: “SADC Strategy for Economic Transformation: Leveraging the Region’s Diverse Resources for Sustainable Economic and Social Development through Value Addition and Beneficiation.”

An extract from the Summit Communiqué reads: “Summit directed that industrialization should take centre stage in SADC’s regional integration agenda. To this end, Summit mandated the Ministerial Task Force on Regional Economic Integration to develop a strategy and roadmap for industrialization in the region”.

A lot of policy questions arise from this strong emphasis on industrialisation. What is the relationship between the region’s trade and industrial policies? What are the resource endowments of SADC member states, labour policies, investment regimes, and size of economies? How feasible is it to structurally transform the SADC economies? What is the role of the revised Regional Indicative Strategic Development Programme in championing the new mandate?

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