Conclusions and recommendations

This chapter looked at the status of human development in SADC. The following is a summary of the chapter findings.

The general picture since 2000 is that the subregion has not made significant progress in the four facets of human development; income, access to education and health services, and gender equality. Using the 2011 HDI ranking, the SADC subregion ends up in the

low human development category despite impressive growth rates during the same period.

Although many SADC member States are rich in natural resources, their people endure high poverty and income inequality levels and thus it is evident that jobless growth pat-terns in these countries are prevalent. Countries that are not rich in natural resources have faced moderate growth patterns but high rural poverty levels and income inequalities have remained.

That jobless growth patterns are prevalent in the subregion is reinforced by the statistics that show that unemployment rates have not reduced since the turn of the millennium. In addition, high unemployment has been shown to affect women and the youth dispropor-tionately. At the same time, with the exception of Mozambique, all other SADC countries experienced deteriorating labour productivity relative to the levels of 1991. The absence of strong links between growth and employment calls for increased social-protection mea-sures, especially for vulnerable groups in society.

Access to basic social services such as health and education seems to demonstrate a gender bias against women. Not only are female school enrolment and completion rates lower than those for males but also, of the three notable health stresses, maternal mortality has shown the least progress compared to infant and under-five mortality rates. On a positive note, the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic has resulted in declines in the HIV preva-lence rates, albeit marginal. These problems have been compounded by a general lack of prioritisation of the social sectors by national governments, as can be seen from the wide-spread failure by SADC member States to meet the social-sector expenditure thresholds as agreed upon in the various declarations.

Most socioeconomic problems have been seen to affect women disproportionately and the general decline (though marginal) in gender inequality in the subregion is a positive note.

This calls for a scaling-up these efforts and dedication by all member States to register significant progress on this front.

The subregion’s record of inbound tourism (the proxy for “cultural exchange”) shows that inbound tourism grew in all economies in SADC during the reference period, except in one country (DRC). Overall, the SADC subregion’s record for social and cultural integra-tion suggests that there is a significant gap and opportunity for fostering specific achieve-ments at the subregional level. Most of the subregional arrangeachieve-ments are either not yet in effect or have been rather ineffective. Thus, there is need for more concerted efforts at the subregional level to build strategies and policies for mutually beneficial, coordinated and harmonised social integration, with opportunities for all populations of all countries.

From theory, it was expected that subregional integration would influence human devel-opment through income, access to services and empowerment. The chapter findings sug-gested that this link was largely absent, due to the non-inclusive growth patterns prevalent in the subregion and the low priority accorded to social sectors, especially health and edu-cation. The onus lies on national governments to prioritise spending on the social sectors and to pursue inclusive growth strategies.

“Human development” refers to a sustainable process that expands and strengthens peo-ple’s capabilities, such as abilities to read and write, to avoid premature death, to appear in public without shame, and to enjoy a decent standard of living. It empowers people to participate in the improvement of their own well-being. The basic objective of human development is to create an enabling environment in which people can enjoy long, healthy and creative lives.

Countries of Southern Africa are confronted with problems relating to both growth and development. The problems relating to economic growth primarily concern the need to increase GDP, while those relating to development can be viewed as concerning the need to increase GDP in such a manner that the per capita incomes of the poorest members of the society also increase over time. In order for growth to be pro-poor, poor women and men must be able to participate in, contribute to and benefit from economic growth and the most effective means of this is through decent and productive employment. Thus country policies within SADC must be tailored to ensure that the pace and pattern of economic growth leads to employment opportunities, and that the poor are sufficiently empowered.

While SADC countries still lag behind other subregions of the world in human develop-ment, the recent protocols are beginning to result in signs of recovery. These protocols address reforms in governance, distributive systems and mechanisms to protect people against downside risks, including disease pandemics, political instabilities, droughts and adverse terms of trade.

As earlier noted, social integration is often forgotten or marginalised in many subregional policies and strategy-formulation processes that are responsible for planning human de-velopment. The HDR emphasizes the important role of social integration in fostering good outcomes in terms of human development. Cultural and social integration in terms of labour mobility within the SADC bloc remains difficult to determine, due to the un-availability of quality data. However, using international migrant stock as a proxy of freer movement of people or a measure of migration, a very diverse picture is seen across SADC.

Some countries have reduced their migrant stock, while others have recorded an increase.

How much these changes can be attributed to increased or reduced levels of tolerance for foreigners in the host countries is not very clear.