Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders were set to meet behind closed doors on Tuesday, the last day of their summit, zooming in on issues crippling growth in the region, including Aids, political instability and poverty.
Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa said at the summit’s opening in Dar es Salaam Monday that Aids was among the biggest threats to the regional grouping’s member states, where about 14-million people are infected with HIV or Aids.
”There is a distinct threat of some communities in our nations dissappearing, or being so debilitated by the combined effects, loss of skilled labour and costs of medical care, that generations of social and economic progress risk being completely wiped out.”
At their two-day meeting in Tanzania, delegates have focussed on Aids, poverty, famine and security matters, as well as ways to help Zimbabwe deal with its economic crisis.
The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle following his government’s often violent land redistribution programme and his re-election in 2002 polls widely condemned as fraudulent.
SADC countries such as South Africa have been criticised for their policy of ”quiet diplomacy” towards Mugabe, a hero of Zimbabwe’s 1970s’ liberation war and a pan-Africanist.
The SADC, established in 1980, was originally formed to aid economic development and to respond to basic needs, but has extended its remit to include security and defence issues.
Differences between SADC countries have prevented the organsation from speaking with one voice, hampering its development.
An editorial in the Mail & Guardian newspaper said South Africa’s economic ”giantism” was resented in SADC.
”South Africa has taken only Southern African Customs Union countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa Swaziland) into negotiations for free trade agreements with the US and European Free Trade Association,” the newspaper said on Friday.
”This has caused resentment among SADC members, ever sensitive to the giantism of South Africa.”
Last month the Seychelles announced that it was not getting value for its annual $250 000 membership fee and would not renew its SADC contract.
SADC groups Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP