SADC’s Balancing Act: Ensuring Regional Cooperation Amidst External Pressures

The 45^th SADC Summit: Symbolism over substance?

• The 45^th Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ordinary Summit of the Heads of State and Government convened on 17 August 2025 in Antananarivo, in the Republic of Madagascar.
• While this annual gathering is crucial for member states to assert the overarching policy direction and oversee SADC’s operations, it offered all the theatre of regional diplomacy: speeches, handshakes, lofty themes of “resilience” and “integration.” Yet beneath the surface, SADC once again demonstrated its troubling habit of celebrating symbolism over substance.
• This year’s theme emphasised building resilience in SADC by advancing industrialisation, agricultural transformation, and energy transition. Leaders emerged from the Summit with grand declarations on industrialisation, agricultural transformation, and energy transition- buzzwords recycled from past communiqués. But beyond the rhetoric, the glaring omissions were unavoidable: no concrete financing models, no measurable targets, no accountability framework.
• The Summit took place amid member states currently grappling with significant challenges, including burgeoning custom tariffs, dwindling foreign aid and stagnant growth.
• It is one thing to declare industrialisation as a priority; it is another to admit that without investment in regional infrastructure, harmonised tariffs, and common industrial policy, it remains a slogan. This summit, like many before it, felt more like an exercise in mutual congratulation than an urgent grappling with a region facing mounting external and internal pressures.

 Geopolitical uncertainty meets economic vulnerability

• The timing of this year’s summit could not have been more consequential. The U.S. tariffs on imports from over 90 countries have deepened global economic uncertainty, disproportionately affecting regions like SADC that rely on commodity exports and external financing. In theory, this moment should serve as a wake-up call to accelerate intra-regional trade, dismantle stubborn barriers, and insulate SADC economies from external shocks.
• The gravity of this year’s summit cannot be overstated, as it unfolds amid global macroeconomic uncertainty largely driven by U.S. tariffs on imports from over ninety countries.
• It is no doubt that the increased U.S tariffs have made a compelling case for acceleration of stronger intra-regional trade measures and calls for the intensification of efforts to eradicate trade barriers, and prioritisation of investment in essential infrastructure within the SADC region.
• However, from the communique released at the end of the Summit, it seemed that leaders were more interested in patting each other on the back than having robust discussions on finding solutions or coming up with mitigating strategies to rescue the region from economic malaise.
• For instance, the Summit’s declarations on industrialisation and energy transition lacked clear funding pathways or measurable targets.
• The communique reveals a bloc caught flat-footed, unable to translate adversity into a strategic pivot. Where is the urgency? Where is the roadmap for collective self-reliance? The paradox is stark: the global economy is forcing regions to turn inward, yet SADC seems paralysed by its old ailments – overlapping memberships, tariff rivalries, and overdependence on customs revenues.

The security paradox: outsourcing Africa’s peace

• The Summit reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to promoting peace, security, and stability in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and welcomed the joint mediation efforts undertaken by the African Union Commission (AUC), SADC and East African Community (EAC), and the process integrating the Luanda and Nairobi Peace Processes, while acknowledging the urgent need for complementarity and harmonisation between Africa-led processes with other initiatives, including the Washington Accord 2025 and the Doha Declaration of Principles of 2025.
• Yet this rings hollow when one considers the erosion of SADC’s own Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, which has been marginalised by external actors. The reliance on the AU, EAC, and even non-African frameworks such as the Washington Accord 2025 and Doha Declaration reveals an uncomfortable truth: SADC no longer owns the security agenda in its backyard.
• What is the point of an Organ on Defence and Security if it continually plays second fiddle to external initiatives? Until SADC is willing to invest political capital and resources in strengthening its security architecture, it will remain a spectator in conflicts that define its own region.
• The removal of Lesotho from the Organ’s agenda, however, offers a different narrative. The country’s progress in implementing long-delayed political and constitutional reforms was acknowledged as a success story – evidence that sustained regional pressure and support can yield tangible stability gains. Yet the Lesotho case also reveals the paradox of SADC’s security posture: effective in shepherding reform in smaller, contained contexts, but hesitant and inconsistent when confronting entrenched conflicts like those in the DRC or northern Mozambique. In short, the Organ can put out the “small fires” but struggles when the blaze threatens to engulf the region.
• Meanwhile, the Summit also expressed concern over the ongoing attacks on civilians in Palestine (Gaza) which have resulted in the loss of lives, destruction of property, and worsening humanitarian conditions and called for an immediate cease-fire, the release of all hostages, and the commencement of talks to bring a lasting solution to the conflict.
• This demonstrated SADC’s willingness to voice solidarity on global conflicts. But critics may ask: what does it say about the region’s credibility when it can condemn violence thousands of kilometres away yet cannot enforce peace in its own backyard? The disjuncture between strong words abroad and limited action at home underscores SADC’s crisis of agency in matters of peace and security.

New leadership

• The Summit elected Mr. Andry Rajoelina, President of the Republic of Madagascar, the Chairperson of SADC, and Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa, the Incoming Chairperson of SADC.
• Lazarus Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi, was elected Chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, and Majesty King Mswati III, of the Kingdom of Eswatini, the Incoming Chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.

What awaits South Africa as SADC Chair in 2026

• South Africa’s incoming chairship in 2026 is both an opportunity and a trap. The expectations are enormous: to revive regional industrialisation, deepen value chains, accelerate AfCFTA implementation, and rehabilitate the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security. Yet critics rightly recall South Africa’s lacklustre chairship in 2020, which left little in terms of measurable achievement. Why should 2026 be any different?
• South Africa will seek to lead SADC in strengthening industrial capacity and regional value chains, modernising agriculture, and promoting an inclusive energy transition – all aimed at building a resilient, sustainable, and cohesive SADC region.
• The SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, which is meant to address regional security challenges, has been ineffective and provided room for external actors to actively play a role in resolving conflicts in the region. This has led to the marginalisation of the Organ and SADC in general, as seen in the DRC and to some extent Mozambique.
• South Africa’s task will be to strengthen the Organ’s capacity and ensure its efficient functioning.
• Being the fourth time joining the SADC Summit Troika, South Africa has stated that its chairship in 2026 will provide a unique opportunity for the country to assume a strategic leadership role in the region, nine years after the previous tenure as Chairperson in 2017.
• However, Pretoria’s own domestic challenges – political volatility under the Government of National Unity (GNU), stagnant economic growth and fiscal strain – raise doubts about its ability to project effective leadership regionally. Due to South Africa having the most diversified economy, the most sophisticated financial system, and the greatest stake in regional stability, failure will not only diminish SADC but also entrench its image as a bloc that confuses process with progress.

Conclusion: The cost of complacency

• SADC stands at a crossroads. On the one hand, the region faces unprecedented external pressures – tariffs, declining aid, volatile capital flows. On the other, it grapples with its own demons – fragmented policies, weak institutions, and ritualistic summits heavy on declarations and light on deliverables.
• The balancing act is not between cooperation and sovereignty, as leaders like to suggest. It is between stagnation and reinvention. If SADC continues to pat itself on the back while the house burns, it risks consigning itself to irrelevance, while external actors dictate both its economic fortunes and its security agenda.