Security and Political Governance Overlooked at the Maputo SADC Summit

The consolidation of peace and security forms part of the SADC common agenda, yet security and governance issues constitute ‘high politics’ that remain invisible in the agendas of the summit.

Published on 22 August 2012 in ISS Today

Decisions taken at the recently concluded Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Maputo, Mozambique from 17–18 August 2012, underline the gradual decline in SADC’s focus on security matters in the last three years. The policy agendas of summits are mostly tailored to achieving SADC’s long-term goal of improving democracy, stability and development in its member states. However, the regional organisation’s structures continue to fail in identifying governance and security shortcomings in the short- to medium-term institutionalisation of its collective policy frameworks. Political tensions and what are manifesting as potential crises of governance in SADC member states such as Angola and Swaziland (which has yet to embark on a democratic transition) constitute ‘high politics’ that remain invisible in the agendas of summits. SADC member states consider state-centric economic policies and political exercises like elections as foremost in the consolidation of democracy development and the move towards regional integration. Indeed, political instability in the region is widely associated with shortfalls in establishing and consolidating democratic systems and promoting inclusivity, peace and sustainable development. However, the SADC Summit still fails to place adequate emphasis on these crucial issues.

The SADC Summit lies at the heart of the region’s public policies. Because it is the supreme policy and decision-making institution of SADC, institutional decision-making is centralised in the summit. The summit is led by a troika consisting of the outgoing, current and forthcoming chairpersons. It meets twice a year, conventionally before 31 March each year, to focus primarily on regional economic development issues and the SADC Programme of Action. The second meeting of the summit is usually in August/September and is dedicated to political matters. While the summit has an important role to play in policymaking and mandating collective action, it equally has the power of ‘non-decision’, or taking decisions to pursue policy implementation in certain ways. For instance, in the past three years the decision to make a distinct separation between political and economic integration in its summit programme and communiqués is observable. This was the case in Windhoek, Namibia (2010); Luanda, Angola (2011) and currently, the Maputo Summit, where the agendas mostly focused on regional economic integration and modalities for increasing economic cooperation among the bloc’s membership. The foregoing neglects the well-established linkages between political integration and economic integration. This is unless SADC integration is an exception to this rule, and its regional integration project can be successfully implemented apolitically.

The enduring differentiation between economic and political integration processes in the agenda of the 2012 Maputo Summit, which sought to appraise SADC’s regional integration agenda, gives rise to three questions. The first concerns the issues that were taken into account when defining the scope and parameters of the evaluation itself, and the concept of regional integration. Second, and related to the first question, is whether there is a common understanding of what regional integration is among member states and whether there are existing policy guidelines and agreements on what constitutes both economic and political integration in practice. Thirdly, to what extent are the resolutions expressed in the communiqué evidence-based?

Conceivably, regional integration should be grounded in key SADC policy frameworks that guide decision-making in this area. These are the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), which provides strategic direction in the design and formulation of SADC programmes, activities on trade, and social and economic integration matters; and the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO), dealing with political and security co-operation. SIPO has been described as ‘an enabling instrument for the implementation of the SADC developmental agenda embodied in the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP)’. There is even a mooted Institutional Capacity Development Programme (ICDP) that is expected to improve the capacity of the SADC Secretariat to more effectively coordinate the implementation of the RISDP and SIPO. Thus logically, if regional integration is to be assessed at summit level, both the RISDP and SIPO matters require scrutiny. While the revised SIPO, which supersedes its 2003 expired version, is not in the public domain, it was approved by the August 2010 SADC Summit in Windhoek, Namibia. Like RISDP, it should have standards that commit the summit to policy implementation and evaluation. Second in the process of the appraisal would be establishing some of the identified major threats to the implementation of the SADC integration agenda. These have been flagged in many past and recent SADC policy documents and include, but are not limited to, the inadequate establishment of the SADC National Committees; lack of effective policy implementation and monitoring mechanisms (this was flagged by South Africa in 2005 as outgoing Chair of the SADC Organ); and weak collaboration with civil society/non-state actors in its security and governance plans, despite highlighting the scope for such participation in the SIPO and other documents.

The Maputo summit communiqué legitimises SADC public policy and will have the effect of setting policy directions between 2012–2013. In this context, the following policy omissions and oversights are highlighted:

• The SIPO:  there was no mention of the SIPO, nor how it fits into the broader integration agenda despite its purported complementarity to RISDP
  
  
• The SADC Regional Early Warning System (REWS): the assertion that the region is peaceful and stable, with the exception of Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, leads to questions on how conflict vulnerability is understood and assessed
  
  
• The Mediation, Conflict Prevention and Preventative Diplomacy Mechanism: established by  summit in 2004 as a dispute resolution mechanism, the status of its operationalisation could be elaborated
  
  
• The Electoral Advisory Council (SEAC): the mention that member states adhere to the SADC Principles Governing Democratic Elections omits the fact that the principles are not compulsory. The SEAC, whose mandate was approved by summit in 2006, was to facilitate the application and review of SADC principles and guidelines governing elections