The Extraordinary SADC Council of Ministers Meeting was held at the Meikles Hotel, Harare, Zimbabwe on 27 April, 2015.

The Meeting was convened to review the progress made with the process of developing the SADC Strategy and Road Map following a directive from the SADC Summit of Heads of States and Government at their meeting held in Victoria Falls in August, 2014.

Council considered the Draft Industrialisation Strategy and Road Map that has been prepared as part of the broad based consultative process involving experts from Member states, and approved by the Ministerial Task Force on Industrialisation, which met in Harare in early April, 2015. The Strategy will be presented to the Summit on Wednesday, 29 April, 2015 at the Rainbow Towers in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The Strategy is anchored on three pillars, namely: Industrialisation as a champion of economic and technological transformation; competitiveness as an active process to move from comparative advantage to competitive edges, and Regional integration and geography as the context for industrial development and economic prosperity.

Council underscored that, focused programmes aimed at enhancing economic inter-linkages to unlock regional potentials, scaling up productive capacities and competitiveness, stimulating beneficiations and value chains, enhancing technological set-ups, and improving the business enabling environment, as important features of the Industrialisation Strategy; and that implementation will be underpinned on sound policies and appropriate enabling environment across the Member States.

The Strategy has a long term perspective, covering the period 2015-2063, aligned to the Continental Agenda 2063, a continental strategy whose aim is to optimize the use of Africa’s resources for the benefit of all Africans.

Council has recognized the pivotal role that the private sector would play in making this process a success., for which reason the region will develop immense public-private sector partnerships.

Council also reviewed the Revised Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) within the framework of the Mid Term Review of the RISDP, SADC’s blue print for development. The region recognized that in order for our countries and our citizens to benefit economically, it is critical that we maximize on value addition on our natural resources and other related products.

To this end, Summit directed that as part of the RISDP review, it was necessary to front load the aspect of industrialization into the RISDP, ahead of the Market Integration programme which merely focuses on trade liberalization, and considering the poor state of industrialisation of SADC countries, this earlier approach would perpetually result in skewed trade patterns which favour the more industrilaised countries.

Council reviewed the amended RISDP and satisfied itself, that indeed the aspect of industrialization, which takes on board beneficiation, had been taken on board going forward. However, associated with this is the recognition by Council that there will be need to not only allocate resources to implement this ambitious agenda, but also ensure that the resources are allocated on a priority basis. Furthermore, it will be critical, that a proper structure be developed to ensure adequate human resources to implement the programme at the national and regional levels. We are encouraged by the number of partners who have expressed interest to also assist the region in this regard.

Council also considered the SADC Common Position on Negotiations for a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), which position is based on consensus amongst SADC Member States, and will constitute guidance for SADC as a region, when it comes to engagement with the rest of the continent, within the process of negotiations for the continental trade regime.

Council also received a report on the Status of Preparations for the Forthcoming COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit that will be held in Egypt in June, at which the Tripartite Free Trade Area will be launched.

As Council, we will always appreciate the role of the media in creating awareness around this strategy and the need to successfully implement the same.

» Download: Remarks by SADC Executive Secretary Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax