Regional prerequisites for human development

Many observers agree that good governance and democracy are among the most critical national and regional prerequisites for fostering human development. These aspects define regional power balances and national structures for custody and stewardship. In this way, they define the extent to which the citizenry of a country or subregion can take advantage of (secure) civic and human rights, using these to create or draw on the existing economic and social opportunities that are ultimately responsible for facilitating human develop-ment and true human progress. The following paragraphs therefore consider the recent political governance record in SADC.

The political environment in the SADC subregion was relatively stable during most of 2000-2011. Seychelles, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia are the most transparent, politically advanced, and among the richest countries in the subregion. These can be described as highly stable democracies. the rich countries (Botswana, Seychelles, Mauritius, South Africa and Namibia) and less-rich countries (such as Zambia and Ma-lawi) have held numerous free and fair elections. This is a signal that democracy is gener-ally growing in the subregion.

Zimbabwe faced political unrest starting in 2002, when there was conflict and reallocation of 11.5 million hectares of land from white commercial farmers to black Zimbabweans.

A government of national unity was formed in 2008 to try and bring back political and economic stability. In 2009, Zimbabwe recorded its first positive real GDP growth record (of 5.7 per cent) and its economy was one of the fastest growing in the subregion during that year. This growth follows a decade of economic contraction due to political uncer-tainty in the country.

The mining-rich eastern region of DRC also showed signs of instability due to the pres-ence of pockets of rebels still active in the region. Various observers noted the possibility of this undermining the peace agreement signed by DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda in 2010.

Madagascar was the only country to experience serious political uncertainty due to a mili-tary coup in 2009. The political, social and economic effects of the political unrest have not fully subsided.

Overall therefore, the subregion experienced stable political governance and growing de-mocracy, as seen from the experiences of the majority of countries. ECA’s African Gov-ernance Report (ECA, 2005) reviewed a sample of 28 African countries, namely Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana,

Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nige-ria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, of which 10 were SADC members. This report highlighted the following progress in Africa:

• Adherence to constitutionalism was getting stronger

• Democratic and multiparty elections were increasingly becoming the only acceptable means of conferring and alternating power

• Political space was becoming more liberalised

• Political systems were becoming markedly more inclusive and diverse

• The participation of civil-society organisations (CSOs) was getting stronger, with CSOs becoming more active in decision-making processes

• Voter participation was very high in most countries

• Political parties were becoming more legitimate and flourishing, although they remained weak and largely ineffective in many countries

• The electoral process and institutions were becoming more transparent and credible and

• There were improvements in human rights in Africa, although progress remained tenuous.

Despite the general positive outcomes, challenges still remained in terms of political gov-ernance in Africa in general and in SADC in particular. The report described a number of outstanding key challenges in political governance, which are summarised below:

• Protecting the rights of women and children remained a key governance challenge in Africa

• The electoral commissions needed to be more independent and better resourced

• Law-enforcement agencies continued to violate the rights of the people in many countries

• Opposition parties lacked access to resources and security, which undermined the effectiveness of the electoral process

• CSOs needed to improve their internal governance, and

• Corruption was still a major challenge in most countries in Africa.

Regarding the last point, a summary ranking of SADC countries using Transparency International’s corruption index, which measures a large number of countries captured globally (Figure 3.15), reveals a disappointing trend for the SADC subregion generally.

Except for six countries (Botswana, Seychelles, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia) all SADC member States experienced varying degrees of deterioration in their global cor-ruption ranking, suggesting a worsening of corcor-ruption among countries in the subregion relative to countries in the rest of the world. Thus, either the situation in SADC was gener-ally getting worse in absolute terms; or it remained genergener-ally static and without improve-ments, while the rest of the world stepped up efforts against corruption.

Figure 3.15: SADC ranking on Transparency International global corruption tables

Source: constructed from Transparency International ranking

The African Governance Report 2005 (AGR) reported that households across Africa be-lieved that the officers and officials in public institutions who were most likely to take a bribe were those from the police services, the tax-collection authorities and the judicial system (Figure 3.16).

Figure 3.16: Household perceptions about corruption

Source: Adapted from the African Governance Report (ECA, 2005).

Corruption is usually a symptom of weaknesses and ineffectiveness in systemic and insti-tutional capacities. As reported in AGR, the instiinsti-tutional effectiveness and accountability of governments across Africa (as well as their performance in the delivery of basic social services) were quite uneven. Although a few countries had made modest progress in build-ing capacity through improvements in professionalism, work ethics, remuneration and insulation from political interference, public services in the majority of African countries generally, and in SADC countries specifically, faced serious challenges in these areas. These countries needed to intensify their efforts towards adhering to the basic norms of merit, capacity and performance in guiding recruitment and career progression in the civil ser-vice. Recruiting workers loosely and subjectively, without objective criteria such as merit, undermines institutional capacity and instead fosters inefficiency, poor service delivery and corruption. Without merit and professional vocation, it is easy for the integrity of the public service to be compromised.

In the face of the current weak and ineffective institutional capacities, the risk of poor human security outcomes had concurrently increased. More often than not this risk had increased for a number of reasons: for instance, while a number of countries (12 out of 28) covered in AGR, including Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe from SADC, had elaborate constitutional provisions and several institutions to protect human rights, less than 30 per cent of the experts surveyed in the AGR studies said that these rights were always or usually respected. And nearly 60 per cent of the experts surveyed across all the 28 project countries said that citizens had little or no confidence at all in law-enforcement organs.

The importance is well recognized of human protection through secure human rights that foster good governance, sustainable development, and peace and security while addressing socioeconomic challenges. The human security and human rights situations in SADC, as well as the limited capacity of institutions to protect human rights and promote security, are perhaps among the gravest unresolved challenges in the subregion. The endemic na-ture of corruption is a clear sign of social vices that compromise and erode social fabrics, causing harm to societies. The very structure, processes and institutions meant to protect civic liberties and human rights turn against society when there is corruption, and this intensifies as institutional capacity for protecting human beings and their civic and human rights becomes lower or further diminished. These challenges need to be tackled urgently.

At least there is hope that the challenges are receiving some attention regionally. African leaders and multilateral development partners such as ECA have recognized and acknowl-edged the dangers associated with human insecurity and human rights violations in the subregion. AGR suggests that the challenge is to create the necessary conditions to sustain and improve some of the important progress and accomplishments that have been ob-served in recent times. In summary, reform is necessary in areas where little has been done and, given the range of challenges, a multifaceted approach is recommended to improve the human rights situation:

• An important overarching action will be to support and consolidate the trend towards peace, stability and democratisation at the national level.

• Strategies should be formulated and applied that will build awareness of rights and particularly that will ensure that the requirements of human-rights laws are widely known and applied. One strategy, for instance, is ensuring that non-governmental organisations work closely with the judicial systems, human rights commissions and other watchdog institutions to develop understanding and awareness of human rights.

• Although gender representation in all structures of government is improving in Africa, further sensitisation to issues that undermine gender equality is needed for societies that are still largely patriarchal. National legal systems critically need to respond to the needs, concerns and experiences of women, and thus provide accessible, gender-sensitive redress for women. There is also need to deal with the aspects of custom and customary law that undermine women’s rights.

• African governments should also develop mechanisms that facilitate people’s access to oversight bodies. Among other measures, this could be through carrying out regular nationwide tours among the general population to increase awareness of the presence of credible institutions in their localities and to foster positive links with local officials. This could also be through advertising campaigns and media coverage of the activities of the human rights commissions, which would provide higher public profiles for these institutions.

• Fostering a culture of protection will be imperative across Africa. This can be through specific actions such as conducting formal courses and workshops on fundamental rights for magistrates, prosecutors, the police, court interpreters and all others involved in law enforcement, as have been undertaken by Namibia’s Ministry of Justice. Protection should not only be built up as a vocation, but it should also be underpinned by efficient systems of surveillance of the human-rights record of police and efficient punishment systems for police misconduct.

3.3 Conclusions and recommendations

This chapter focused on the linkages between subregional integration and human develop-ment and the summary of findings is as follows:

The share of SADC in world trade, though showing a growing trend since 2002, remains small and South Africa is dominant in SADC exports and imports. Though the subregion improved its trade openness during the reference period, the erosion of these gains due to the global crisis pointed out the subregion’s vulnerabilities to global shocks. This can be viewed as a push for deeper integration, so that a huge African regional market may be consolidated to insulate its member states partly from adverse external shocks, such as those seen during the global crisis.

For the majority of SADC countries, industrial development (as captured by the propor-tion of industry in GDP) has not occurred as expected. This is largely because the majority of SADC countries have accorded low priority to investments in research and develop-ment. The scanty data on expenditure on research and development, where they exist, are concentrated in the extraction industries of the countries concerned.

Except for three countries (Angola, DRC and Zimbabwe), there is some convergence in indicators such as growth in money supply, inflation and the nominal lending rates for the other SADC countries. Such convergence however, cannot be said of the indicator for fiscal balance. From a cursory exposition, other things being equal, it would be easier to achieve monetary harmony between the SADC countries than it would be to harmonise and synchronize their positions on fiscal policy.

There has been a steady accumulation in the FDI stocks in the subregion but this has re-mained small overall. Thus, it is more likely that the growth and development of SADC’s private sector is being driven more significantly by domestic private investment and credit expansion to the domestic private sector than by FDI. This calls for increased efforts at the subregional level to improve the subregion’s attractiveness as a destination for FDI.

The agriculture sector, though important as a source of employment and income for the majority of the population in the SADC subregion, is characterised by low levels of pro-ductivity and sophistication.

The rate of natural resource depletion in the subregion had increased, especially in those countries whose economies are dominated by extractive industries. Periods of high natural resource depletion rates occurred when there was increased demand for the primary com-modities.

With the exception of Madagascar, the political environment in the SADC subregion was relatively stable during 2000-2011. There were numerous free and fair elections in many countries and this signals growing democracy generally in the subregion. However, a sum-mary ranking of SADC countries using Transparency International’s corruption index reveals a worsening or generally static levels of corruption.

In conclusion, the links between subregional economic integration and human develop-ment have been largely absent, because intra-regional trade was not significantly stimulat-ed to create income and employment opportunities among SADC member countries. The wide view is that the adoption and use of restrictive rules of origin has largely contributed to the failure to stimulate intra-regional trade in SADC. In this regard, adoption of less restrictive rules of origin should be prioritised in order to promote intra-regional trade.

The foregoing analysis leads us to make a number of conclusions and recommendations:

Trade policy, reforms and outcomes:

The SADC subregion has made remarkable progress in developing the architecture for trade facilitation and expansion. A Trade Protocol is in place and serves as the basis for an explicit agenda for subregional trade integration. Despite the impressive architecture, trade performance has been limited, with South Africa dominating the subregion with its relatively more impressive trade record. The member States of the subregion will have to work together to overcome internal local supply-side constraints and to negotiate for their current preferential market access to global markets to be maintained as far as possible.

Moreover, it will be important to find avenues for dismantling internal non-tariff barriers to trade within the subregion.

Economic cooperation:

Because of the inherent limitations to the extent to which integration along trade lines can contribute to broad-based human development, it will be important for the subregion to continue with efforts towards economic cooperation. Private sector development and the facilitation of the expansion of the private sector will be critical for improving economic prospects. Currently, although credit to the private sector has been increasing, domestic savings and investment have been declining, implying an emphasis on foreign investment.

In principle it is desirable that the subregion has been attracting increasing amount of FDI. However, care has to be taken that foreign investments do not lead to the complete exclusion and isolation of local would-be economic actors. Deliberate policies will be required to ensure that the ownership of capital can be extended to the domestic private sector.

Of interest, the agricultural sector makes the smallest contribution to GDP in the SADC subregion and has the lowest value-added or productivity, except in South Africa. This is despite the fact that the majority of the SADC population, particularly the poor, relies on agriculture. The inability of the subregion to make significant gains in expanding agricul-ture and agricultural productivity further marginalises the poor and limits the subregion’s prospects for human development. Most SADC countries urgently need the formulation and implementation of subregional agriculture policies and strategies that improve out-puts, productivity, marketing, market access and commerce. Improving the performance of agriculture would provide significant gains for food security, nutrition, employment and, ultimately, human development. There is therefore an urgent need to intensify efforts in agriculture.

On the other hand, the natural-resource boom since the early 2000s has seen an increase in natural resource depletion and higher national earnings from extractive industries in most countries rich in mineral resources. Unfortunately, the extractive industry does not foster inclusive growth or poverty reduction, because it is highly capital-intensive and driven largely by foreign capital. Therefore there is urgent need for countries to form structures that support long-term and sustainable distribution of the fortunes from extrac-tive industries to the local populations. This could be through the establishment of more robust mechanisms for capturing rents from the industry and additional mechanisms such as stabilisation funds for sterilising the booms and distributing their benefits.

Regional pre-requisites for human development:

The prerequisites for human development include stable political, social and civic environ-ments, underpinned by good economic and political governance, transparency and ac-countability. While SADC made progress in establishing thriving democracies to varying degrees by country, it unfortunately lags behind in a number of critical areas. One of these areas is the track record of corruption. Corruption is almost endemic in many SADC countries and rather than improving relative to the rest of the world, many countries have regressed in the recent past. There is an urgent need to re-enforce the fight against cor-ruption in the subregion through the establishment or strengthening, legal arming or re-arming, and financial resourcing of key national and subregional institutions that jointly fight corruption.

Overall, the SADC subregion has had ambitious policies, strategies, plans, programmes and projects for subregional integration. These have been faced with significant challenges and broadly have had insufficient impacts on trade development and economic growth at best. The extent to which these arrangements have fostered human development, particu-larly poverty reduction, is even lower than their insufficient economic impacts.

CHAPTER 4: Macro Policy & Economic