The Southern African Development Community (SADC)

When the Organization of African Unity (OAU) authorized the OAU Liberation Committee (ALC) (also known as the African Decolonization Committee—Comité de libération de l’Afrique) in 1963, to assist predominantly southern African nations to achieve independence, cast off white minority rule in Rhodesia and get rid of apartheid in South Africa, there was little to suggest that working with the Frontline States (FLS), such as Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the latter might eventually evolve into the Southern African Development Coordination Conference and in 1981, the Southern African Development Community. This chapter traces the beginnings of SADC from FLS to SADCC to SADC, highlighting one of the most significant instances of adaptation of African institutions to changing conditions within their regions. The contents illustrate how, besides hosting African liberation movements (training, funding and physical location), FLS members built the SADCC with a goal to reducing their dependence, and therefore the influence, of then-apartheid South Africa on their economies, with consultation and assistance from UNECA and other global partners. It addresses the necessity thereof: while South Africa was spending US$900+ million on defense and paramilitary forces, Zambia’s GDP was about US$2 billion, demonstrating the weaker positions FLS and neighboring states had relative to their more powerful and nefarious neighbors, who were supported by Global North states and major security alliances such as NATO. The chapter examines the data, which illustrates that non-economic accomplishments may have been more significant than increasing intra-regional trade in the southern African region.