Southern Africa: background information

Having recently emerged from a period of war, Angola and DRC are still fragile, and their peoples are struggling to rebuild their lives in the context of peace without rights, without food, without water, without sanitation.

The socio-economic situation in OSISA's countries of operation varies. Angola and Mozambique, followed by Malawi, Zambia and Lesotho manifest the worst socio-economic conditions.

Until the year 2000, Zimbabwe was performing well, but is now in crisis. Swaziland, although classified a middle-income country (per capita GDP of US$1 340) now faces serious challenges.

Overall, Botswana and Namibia have had the best performing economies in the OSISA region, while, in terms of strict economic growth figures (although not in terms of socio-economic transformation or national distribution), Mozambique has led the region at about 9% growth per year. More recently, Angola has outstripped all it's neighbours, with economic growth approaching 16% per annum (Afrol news article) — although the vast majority of Angolans see none of this wealth.

Poverty is a major and growing problem across the region. It is estimated that the economies of the countries that make up the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) need to grow at an average of 7% per year in order to meet the targets of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2002, most of the region's countries were already off target, with nearly half of Zimbabwe's population needing emergency food aid, and the same going for 30% of people in Lesotho, 29% in Malawi, 26% in Zambia, and 24% in Swaziland.

Consitutionally, all nine countries — except arguably Swaziland — have multi-party political systems, but the level of democratic institutionalisation varies. Democratic practice is under constant threat.

There is reluctance on the part of leaders in the region to take a stand against human rights violations committed by their neighbours, resulting in a conspiracy of silence around human rights issues. The gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe, for instance, have been ignored by the SADC (for instance at the SADC Summit in Tanzania in August 2003).

There is a “talk shop” culture within the SADC. A number of potentially progressive protocols and instruments have been signed since the reorientation of the SADC in 1994, but little attention has been paid to their implementation—e.g., the gender targets on women's participation in decision-making.

HIV and AIDS is a major and growing problem. It is estimated that approximately ten million citizens are living with HIV or AIDS, accounting for about 5% of the total population of the SADC region.

Violent and organised crime is on the increase.

With the arguable exception of Botswana and Namibia, states in the region are weak. Accordingly, they are unable to develop sound legal and regulatory frameworks, or to provide their citizens with adequate social services, safety and security.

Judicial independence is weak and/ or under threat throughout the region.

Women have a low status and continue to be disadvantaged by discriminatory laws and practices.

Generally, civil society is weak, although Zambia and Zimbabwe can boast slightly stronger and better civil society organisations than othercountries in the OSISA region.

The marginalisation and abuse of children is on the increase in tandem with a growth in the number of orphans and street children.

SADC parliamentarians, policy-makers, and electoral commissions are showing a growing interest in sharing skills and experience. However, in the process, they do little to generate (much less to live by) inviolable transnational norms and standards on good governance in the region.

There are a number of human rights and democracy building organisations/ platforms in the region, but there seems to be little coordination and synergy within the sector. The weakness of the Southern African Human Rights NGO Network is a case in point. However there is a growing interest in networking for reasons of solidarity and capacity building.

The SADC Trade Protocol has been signed, but in text and detail it is essentially a prototype of the World Trade Organisation rules, and does not take into account the specifics of the region.

South Africa dominates regional trade and investment, with 75% of regional GDP accounted for by South Africa alone.

Regional trade is characterised by a disparate combination of both cooperation and competition. Without engaging its neighbours adequately, South Africa has signed a trade development and cooperation agreement with the European Union that is having major implications for the region as a whole, and particularly for the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) partners.

There are different levels of preparedness among bot governments and NGOs to engage with international development cooperation frameworks, including the Millennium Development Account and Cotonou.

Both direct foreign and portfolio investments take advantage of different social standards across the region to lower corporate obligations. There are no significant transnational norms and standards on consumer protection, labour rights, etc.

Most civil society organisations continue to be weak and divided due to factors such as lack of adequate resources, lack of leadership, competing for turf and scarce resources. Rural and urban, as well as national and international NGO identities tend to compound these divisions.

Civil society continues to work in a restrictive operating environment, typified by government paranoia regarding NGOs who are seen (or portrayed) by some politicians as being confrontational to government. In addition, civil society's role as a possible catalyst for open society in the region tends to be compromised by:

• weak organisational learning because of a lack of critical leadership that can steer the organisation to self-evaluation and strategic positioning (and re-positioning);

• lack of skills in monitoring and evaluation that could enhance performance and the quality of interventions, and improve the impact of programmes;

• unchanging organisational attitudes that therefore fail to promote social change, but help to maintain the status quo (business as usual).