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Southern African Development Community (SADC)

SADC Secretariat, Private Bag 0095, Gaborone, Botswana

Phone : +267 3951863 / Fax : +267 3972848

Web site : www.sadc.int

The Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference, SADCC, the forerunner of the SADC, the Community, was established in April 1980. The transformation of the organization from a Coordinating Conference into a Development Community (SADC) took place on August 17, 1992 in Windhoek, Namibia when the Declaration and Treaty was signed at the Summit of Heads of State and Government thereby. The SADC is one of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). They are regional groupings of African states organized into a legal entity by treaty, with economic and social integration as their main objective. The African Union currently recognizes eight RECs, each of which plays a key role in African integration.

The SADC Objectives are to:

  • achieve development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the peoples of Southern Africa and support the socially disadvantaged through regional integration;

  • evolve common political values, systems and institutions;

  • promote and defend peace and security;

  • promote self-sustaining development on the basis of collective self-reliance, and the inter-dependence of Member States;

  • achieve complementarity between national and regional strategies and programmes;

  • promote and maximise productive employment and utilisation of resources of the region;

  • achieve sustainable utilisation of natural resources and effective protection of the environment;

  • strengthen and consolidate the long-standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the peoples of the region.

The Member States are : the Republic of Angola; the Republic of Botswana; the Democratic Republic of Congo; the Kingdom of Lesotho; the Republic of Madagascar; the Republic of Malawi; the Republic of Mauritius; the Republic of Mozambique; the Republic of Namibia; the Republic of Seychelles; the Republic of South Africa; the Kingdom of Swaziland; the United Republic of Tanzania; the Republic of Zambia; and the Republic of Zimbabwe.