William Saunderson Meyer notes that, despite its rich endowments, the economic performance of the region has been dire
The empty words of a failing presidency. That is the reality linking Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent G20 leadership with his this week assuming the chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Ramaphosa’s limping two terms in office, which have been marked by severe economic and social decline at home and diminishing respect abroad, has been defined by a gulf between vision and execution. His leadership spells at the G20 and SADC show this starkly.
His tenure at the head of the G20 was awash with flowery oratory about ‘sustainability’, even as intensifying military rivalry among the great powers pushed the costly net-zero ambitions that have so damaged Western economies further from practical reach.
It ended, predictably, with Donald Trump snubbing both the Johannesburg summit and its handover ceremony. Since then, South Africa has been excluded from the G20’s work under the US presidency and barred from its summit in Miami, while France uninvited it from the subsequent G7 gathering in Paris.
It is also entirely feasible that Ramaphosa will not be in Lusaka to hand over the SADC chairmanship in August 2027. Unlike his immediate predecessor, Madagascar’s Andry Rajoelin — whose overthrow in a military coup led to Ramaphosa acting as SADC’s interim chair for the past nine months — Ramaphosa is highly unlikely to be removed from office by men in uniform.
But hanging over him is the revived Phala Phala impeachment process, against which he has mounted a desperate rearguard action in the courts, even as a succession struggle gathers momentum within the ANC. If the party performs as disastrously as expected in the municipal elections on 4 November, the pressure for his early departure may become irresistible.
A measure of the shallow intellectual waters in which the ANC is drowning is the cut-and-paste nature of Ramaphosa’s keynote speeches. South Africa’s G20 presidency struggled along under the banner of Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability. For his SADC chairmanship, Ramaphosa announced the theme Solidarity, Equality and Shared Prosperity. The G20 would leave ‘no person, no community and no country behind’ and SADC would be a region in which ‘no country and no person is left behind’.
The pledge to ‘leave no one behind’ is, of course, Ramaphosa’s signature refrain, rivalled only by the ‘green shoots’ of recovery that — like a mystic detecting spectres at a séance — he can discern in even the most dismal economic data. Variations on both phrases have been recycled in his every State of the Nation address since 2019.
Unfortunately, Ramaphosa’s perfumed prose cannot mask the festering condition of SADC. Despite being among the most richly endowed regions in the world, its economic performance has been dire. SADC’s GDP per capita was barely $2,000 in 2024, less than one-twentieth of the European Union’s and not much more than one-sixth of that generated by South America’s more comparable Mercosur bloc.
Much of this failure stems from South Africa’s inability to fulfil the economic promise of its early democratic years. SADC’s roots lie in the Frontline States alliance that supported South Africa’s liberation struggle at great cost. Its economic offshoot and SADC forerunner was established in 1980 with the explicit purpose of reducing the region’s dependence on the apartheid state. With democracy came the hope that South Africa would become the engine of closer integration and growth within SADC, which now has 16 members.
Instead, South Africa’s regional economic performance has been deeply disappointing. Once responsible for roughly two-thirds of the regional economy, it now accounts for around half. The regional centre of economic gravity has shifted not simply because South Africa’s neighbours have prospered. Several, in fact, have performed dismally. But since 2009, the country has stumbled along at little more than 1% annual growth, while economies such as Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo have repeatedly expanded at rates of between 5% and 7%.
Regional economic integration has proceeded slowly, partly because of South Africa’s understandable anxiety about appearing hegemonic within an organisation created to resist its domination. SADC governments also invariably favour short-term national advantage over long-term regional growth. But much of the responsibility lies with the ANC, which controls the region’s economic engine yet remains wedded to dirigiste policies — state-led industrialisation, protected national industries and politically directed development — that sit uneasily with the creation of a genuinely open and thriving regional market.
Six years into its ten-year development plan, SADC awards itself an overall score of just five out of ten. Intra-regional trade remains stuck at 20%, below its pre-pandemic level and far short of the 30% target for 2030. Indeed, an earlier SADC plan had set a 2008 target of 35%. Manufacturing contributes only 11% of regional GDP against a target of 30%; trade barriers remain intractable; and youth unemployment has worsened, rising from 12% to 17% in a single year against a target of 9%. The Regional Development Fund, adopted a decade ago to finance SADC’s ambitions, remains a fund in name only. Just four of its 16 members have ratified its agreement, seven short of the number required for it even to come into existence.
SADC’s moral failure is even more damning than its economic ineptitude.
Established under the 1992 SADC Treaty and operationalised through a protocol adopted in 2000, the SADC Tribunal gave citizens and businesses a regional court of last resort, a forum in which to challenge state-sponsored human-rights violations and lawlessness when their own judiciaries failed them, as they too often did. That avenue survived only until the Tribunal dared to rule against Robert Mugabe’s government over its illegal and uncompensated seizure of agricultural land.
Faced with an independent court willing to hold one of their own accountable, SADC’s leaders — with President Jacob Zuma among the principal protagonists — shamefully chose to neutralise the bench rather than uphold their own treaty. Upon discovering that regional law might apply not only to their citizens but also to themselves, they responded with self-serving solidarity. They systematically neutered the institution by withholding judicial appointments, suspending its operations, and adopting a replacement protocol that denied individuals access to it.
Even after Zuma’s departure, the response of Ramaphosa’s supposedly reformist administration was one of passive compliance rather than principled leadership. A landmark 2018 Constitutional Court judgment declared Zuma’s conduct unconstitutional, unlawful and irrational, forcing Ramaphosa formally to withdraw South Africa’s signature from the restrictive protocol. Yet he has done nothing to champion the Tribunal’s restoration.
Nor should anyone have expected otherwise. Why would Ramaphosa champion accountability when, as recently as August 2025, he stood beside Emmerson Mnangagwa and praised Zimbabwe’s uncompensated expropriation of land as a ‘necessary’ correction of historical injustice?
South Africa’s ANC government, which wields immense influence behind the scenes at SADC, has been complicit in a betrayal of human rights that extends far beyond the destruction of the Tribunal. No fewer than half of SADC’s 16 members are authoritarian states or democracies largely in name. While the rhetoric invokes solidarity with the peoples of southern Africa — ‘nobody left behind’, in Ramaphosa’s parlance — that solidarity is largely with the liberation-era parties and the despotic presidents who rule the roost.
The regional roll-call is bleak. Angola’s MPLA has ruled uninterrupted for more than half a century, ever since independence in 1975. So, too, has Frelimo in Mozambique, which settled the bitter dispute over its dubious 2024 election results with a lethal crackdown in which a reported 315 people died. Over the same period, Comoros has endured more than 20 coups or attempted coups. Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo take place amid repression, intimidation and chronic irregularities, while Eswatini remains an absolute monarchy.
Tanzania’s CCM has smothered meaningful opposition, and Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF — with which the ANC maintains such warm fraternal ties — presides over a militarised kleptocracy where elections are little more than a stage-managed farce. Madagascar completes this dismal list of the damned: SADC expressed alarm when Rajoelina was overthrown, but the country remained in the club.
What SADC needs from Ramaphosa is not yet another ‘vision’. It needs practical, readily implementable steps, reforms for which there will be deadlines, and governmental accountability for it all. Yet, having failed to achieve this during nearly four years as South Africa’s Deputy President and more than eight as President, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that he will pull it off across the SADC region in just a year. Assuming, as noted, that he lasts a year. Follow WSM on X @TheJaundicedEye
Source: SADC Caught in Self-Congratulatory Stagnation – Opinions – The Namibian By Johnathan Beukes Sadc Heads of state produced a communiqué that is a masterclass in the art of high-minded emptiness following their meeting in Durban last weekend. The bloc remains an intergovernmental union crippled by design, masquerading as a multinational farce, I mean force. It […]
Sadc Heads of state produced a communiqué that is a masterclass in the art of high-minded emptiness following their meeting in Durban last weekend.
The bloc remains an intergovernmental union crippled by design, masquerading as a multinational farce, I mean force.
It is a trade union for incumbents, where the paramount rule is not regional progress, but the shield of state sovereignty and mutual self-preservation.
For the citizens of some of the most unequal countries in the world, with member states boasting multidimensional poverty, one would think people-centred solutions would be all the rage.
But every summit is a performative ritual. This 46th iteration offers no exception.
Yet while we are treated to the usual grand declarations of solidarity with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, regional interventions like the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC) are plagued by a severe lack of funding, chaotic logistics, and questionable mandates. SADC officially terminated the mandate of SAMIDRC in March 2025, leading to a chaotic withdrawal of regional troops.
Rather than tackling obvious governance failures in eastern Congo, the bloc has settled for cosmetic security deployments.
In Mozambique, the leadership applauds an “inclusive national dialogue” and counter-terrorism successes, wilfully ignoring the governance voids, military overextension, while the SADC Mission in Mozambique officially ended its phased withdrawal and closed on 15 July 2024.
The deep-rooted economic marginalisation feeding northern insurgencies is conveniently swept under the rug. This normative hypocrisy is matched only by SADC’s deliberate blindness to democratic decay.
The summit warmly commends Madagascar and Mozambique for democratic reforms, an absurdly selective standard from an organisation historically incapable of sanctioning member states that rig elections or crush civil opposition.
When Eswatini remains an absolute monarchy and electoral impasses haunt the region, SADC responds with a comfortable silence.
Should anyone attempt to legally challenge these abuses, they will find no recourse: the bloc famously neutered its own SADC Tribunal the moment it issued a ruling against Zimbabwe’s land reform programme.
Deprived of an independent court, SADC’s lofty human rights commitments are mere suggestions, relying on the goodwill of rulers who sometimes have no intention of complying.
The economic proclamations are equally surreal.
Year after year, member states are urged to remove non-tariff barriers, harmonise standards, and build regional value chains.
Yet this aspirational blueprint collapses against basic structural realities: member states produce the same raw commodities, entering the market as fierce competitors rather than complementary partners.
Hovering over this fragile arrangement is the crushing asymmetry of South African hegemony.
With Pretoria accounting for the vast majority of regional gross domestic product, trade flows are inherently distorted, reducing ambitious industrialisation strategies for smaller states to mere bedtime stories.
SADC continues to suffer from a chronic implementation deficit with a vast chasm separating grandiose blueprints from the actual allocation of domestic resources.
Pledges for climate-smart agriculture, El Niño preparedness, and the SADC Tourism UniVisa, a regional tourist visa framework, read like an institutional wish list rather than an operational agenda.
At least uncle Cyril apologised for his country’s xenophobic attacks.
As long as regime security supersedes institutional enforcement, SADC’s declarations will remain an empty rhetorical exercise, leaving the region trapped in an endless cycle of self-congratulatory stagnation.
Source: Nation expands training to close specialist doctor gap – herald Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Senior Health Reporter SPECIALIST medical care could soon become more accessible beyond Zimbabwe’s major cities, with Government creating over 300 specialist posts in the past two years and now targeting 320 vacancies – an expansion aimed at closing critical gaps in the […]
SPECIALIST medical care could soon become more accessible beyond Zimbabwe’s major cities, with Government creating over 300 specialist posts in the past two years and now targeting 320 vacancies – an expansion aimed at closing critical gaps in the country’s health system.
Permanent Secretary for Health and Child Care Dr Aspect Maunganidze said the Government created 125 specialist posts in 2025 and a further 178 this year, part of a broader plan to add 32 000 new health-sector posts nationwide by 2030.
The early results are measurable. The number of specialists actually in post rose by 73 in just six months, climbing from 234 in December last year to 307 by June 2026; tangible evidence, officials say, that the investment is translating into doctors on the ground, not just posts on paper.
“Zimbabwe has made steady progress in developing specialist capacity, with a growing pool of specialists across a range of medical and surgical disciplines,” Dr Maunganidze said.
“Government continues to invest in postgraduate education, specialist training and the expansion of specialist services. The largest increases were among physicians, general surgeons and anaesthetists, followed by obstetricians and gynaecologists, neurosurgeons and paediatricians.”
For a health system long strained by shortages in exactly these disciplines, that spread matters. Physicians, surgeons and anaesthetists form the backbone of hospital care; obstetricians and paediatricians are frontline defenders of maternal and child health, two of the metrics by which Zimbabwe’s health outcomes are most closely watched.
Growth in neurosurgery, a field requiring years of specialised training and among the hardest specialties to build locally, signals a system reaching for more complex, higher-order capability rather than simply adding numbers.
Dr Maunganidze was direct about why this matters: specialist doctors, he said, are critical to strengthening Zimbabwe’s health system and to achieving Universal Health Coverage – the principle that all citizens, regardless of income or location, should be able to access the health services they need.
Their development, he said, forms part of the broader national commitment under the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2) to double the country’s health workforce by 2030.
The scale of the challenge is laid bare in the 2025 register of the Medical and Dental Practitioners Council of Zimbabwe (MDPCZ). Among selected specialties, 647 specialists were licensed to practise in the country, but only 462 were actually practising.
Physicians led the active ranks at 98, followed by obstetricians and gynaecologists at 93, paediatricians at 52, anaesthetists at 47, general surgeons at 46 and ophthalmologists at 42.
Even those figures overstate what is available to ordinary Zimbabweans relying on public health facilities, Dr Maunganidze cautioned, since registration numbers do not necessarily reflect who is actually serving the public system.
Some registered specialists work in the private sector, in academia, or have left the country altogether – a reminder that recruitment alone will not fix the problem unless it is matched by retention.
“Government is consequently strengthening coordination between the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the Health Service Commission, training institutions and regulatory councils to maintain an accurate and comprehensive picture of the specialist workforce and guide future planning,” he said. The specialist expansion sits within the Human Resources for Health Investment Compact, a framework designed to align training, recruitment, deployment and retention across the health sector.
It draws together the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the Health Service Commission, the ministries responsible for higher and tertiary education, finance, skills audit and development, and labour and social welfare, alongside universities, professional and regulatory councils and other stakeholders – a Whole-of-Government architecture reflecting how deeply specialist workforce planning now cuts across the country’s public institutions.
“However, as the health system expands and demand for specialised services increases, there remains significant work to be done to further increase specialist numbers, strengthen the skills mix and improve their distribution across the country,” Dr Maunganidze said.
“The current focus is therefore on ensuring that specialist production is aligned with national health needs, emerging disease patterns, service expansion and the requirements of provincial and referral facilities.”
To that end, Government is expanding postgraduate training places in priority specialties, increasing the number of accredited training sites, and strengthening clinical supervision and mentorship for trainees.
It is also broadening the pool of specialists qualified to train postgraduate students, supporting sub-specialisation, and drawing on regional and international training opportunities – including through the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa – where local training capacity remains limited.
“The strategic direction is to progressively align specialist training with quantified national requirements, ensuring that the country develops the right skills mix for current and future health needs,” Dr Maunganidze said.
He added that retention remained a key priority, with Government pursuing better conditions of service, clearer career progression and expanded professional development, alongside opportunities for teaching, research and sub-specialisation. Investment in infrastructure, equipment, medicines and clinical support systems, along with targeted support for specialists posted to underserved areas, forms part of the same retention strategy – as does closer management of diaspora engagement and health-worker migration. More than 5 000 health workers were recruited in 2025 alone, with further recruitment continuing this year, part of the drive to double Zimbabwe’s overall health workforce by 2030.
“Government recognises that retaining specialists requires a combination of appropriate conditions of service, clear career pathways, professional development opportunities and an enabling working environment,” Dr Maunganidze said.
“The development of specialist doctors is being pursued as part of a broader whole-of-Government human capital development programme to double Zimbabwe’s health workforce by 2030.
Through this coordinated approach, Government is implementing a deliberate and sustainable programme to increase specialist capacity and ensure that the country’s health workforce continues to meet the evolving needs of the population.”
Source: State pushes bankable water deal for Norton – herald Sharon Jiyamwa Herald reporter THE Government has urged Norton Town Council and stakeholders to move swiftly from feasibility work to bankable investment arrangements that will unlock construction and long-term operation of a new water treatment solution to strengthen water security and climate resilience by 2030. […]
THE Government has urged Norton Town Council and stakeholders to move swiftly from feasibility work to bankable investment arrangements that will unlock construction and long-term operation of a new water treatment solution to strengthen water security and climate resilience by 2030.
The call was made by Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe in a speech read on his behalf by his deputy Benjamin Kabikira at the Norton Water Investment Symposium held at the University of Zimbabwe Innovation Hub on Friday.
Minister Garwe said the theme “Investing in Water Security and Climate Resilience for a Sustainable and Smart Norton Town by 2030” was timely, noting that Norton had reached a point where the need for a sustainable solution was no longer in question.
“Norton has reached a point where the question is no longer whether a sustainable water solution is required, that need is clear,” he said.
“The challenge now is to move from identifying the problem to financing, constructing and sustainably operating a lasting solution.”
“Water is not merely a municipal service, it is strategic social and economic infrastructure. Reliable water protects public health, supports sanitation, enables housing development and promotes industrial productivity and gives investors confidence.”
He said Norton has continued to grow while its supply has, for many years, depended substantially on bulk treated water sourced outside the town’s administrative boundaries, limiting Council’s ability to control future supply reliability.
Minister Garwe applauded the progress made by the council, saying the project has advanced beyond aspiration through feasibility work carried out through a partnership between Norton Town Council and the University of Zimbabwe.
“The next stage must create clarity on the final technical solution, water allocation, capital requirements, financing, project risks, institutional responsibilities, approvals, operation and long-term maintenance,” he said.
While noting Government’s openness to private-sector participation, development finance and well-structured public-private partnerships, Minister Garwe said any arrangement must protect the public interest, deliver value for money and maintain affordability alongside financial sustainability.
“Our objective is not simply to build a plant, but to establish a water system that works, delivers value and continues to work for generations,” he said.
Minister Garwe also linked the project to Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030, saying progress must be felt “community by community” and “town by town,” including visible improvements such as clean water at household level and expanded private investment.
“Water security will be fundamental to Norton’s transformation and to the wider national development agenda,” he said.
Speaking at the symposium opening, Norton Town Secretary Mr Kizito Muhomba said that the council is working towards securing a reliable and sustainable water supply for all stakeholders and for future generations, and to end the long water crisis in the town.
The event brought together senior Government officials, traditional leadership, Norton Town Council leadership, the University of Zimbabwe, UDCORP, investors, financiers, development partners, business leaders and the media.
Source: Zim clears regulatory path for new power investors – herald Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter ZIMBABWE has cleared a regulatory path for new power investors by formally recognising a wider range of energy sources as the country races to more than double electricity generation capacity to 6 000MW by 2030. Statutory Instrument 129 of 2026, […]
ZIMBABWE has cleared a regulatory path for new power investors by formally recognising a wider range of energy sources as the country races to more than double electricity generation capacity to 6 000MW by 2030.
Statutory Instrument 129 of 2026, published in the Government Gazette last week designates solar energy, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, water, nuclear, coal bed methane, coal, petroleum products and ethanol as energy sources.
“It is hereby notified that the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority, with the approval of the Minister of Energy and Power Development, in terms of section 7 of the Energy Regulatory Act (Chapter 13:23), has made the following notice: This may be cited as the Energy Regulatory (Designation of Energy Source) Notice, 2026. Solar energy, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, water, nuclear, coal bed methane, coal, petroleum products, ethanol and waste to energy are hereby declared as designated energy sources,” read the regulations.
The timing is significant.
Under NDS2, which runs from January 2026 to December 2030, the Government wants national electricity generation capacity to rise from 2 950MW to 6 000MW, with the expansion expected to be driven by both Government and private-sector projects.
The strategy also places universal access to reliable, affordable, sustainable and clean energy at the centre of its infrastructure agenda, with Government seeking universal access by 2030 and positioning renewable energy as a primary source, particularly solar, wind and hydroelectric power.
In an interview with The Herald, Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) chief executive Mr Edington Mazambani said the new regulations would strengthen energy governance while providing certainty for investment.
“Statutory Instrument 129 of 2026 is significant because it provides legal clarity on the energy sources recognised under Zimbabwe’s regulatory framework,” he said.
“This creates certainty for investors, developers and consumers while supporting Government’s efforts to diversify the national energy mix, strengthen energy governance and enhance long-term energy security.”
The policy shift comes as Zimbabwe’s electricity generation has already begun recovering.
Latest ZimStat data show electricity generation increased 20,9 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, with the generation index rising to 117.2 from 97 in the corresponding quarter of 2025.
But the recovery masks a highly concentrated power system.
Hwange Power Station accounted for 56,3 percent of national generation in the first quarter, producing 1,647.4GWh, while Kariba contributed 31,7 percent, or 926.9GWh. Independent Power Producers supplied the remaining 12 percent.
Zimbabwe also imported 371.4GWh of electricity during the quarter, while exports reached 445.6GWh, illustrating the increasingly complex relationship between domestic generation, regional power markets and the national grid.
The National Development Strategy (NDS2) seeks to change that structure by putting private investment at the heart of the expansion.
The strategy says private-sector participation through Independent Power Producers and public-private partnerships will be facilitated, with incentives including Government Project Support Agreements, duty exemptions on renewable-energy equipment and deferment of VAT obligations.
The strategy has identified projects expected to deliver a cumulative 2 471MW of new capacity by 2030, predominantly through private-sector-led initiatives.
The pipeline ranges from thermal generation to a rapidly expanding solar programme and includes 100MW of wind capacity and a 22MW waste-to-energy project at Geo Pomona.
Other major projects include the 1 200MW Zimbabwe share of the Batoka Hydroelectric Power Project, rehabilitation of Hwange Units 1 to 6 to add 700MW, a battery energy storage project capable of providing 600MW of dependable capacity, a phased 500MW gas-to-power project and a 90MW Mutorashanga solar project.
Mr Mazambani said the regulations would remove uncertainty around technologies that previously fell into less clearly defined regulatory categories.
“The regulation addresses a key gap by clearly designating energy sources for regulatory oversight, licensing and national energy planning, removing uncertainty around the classification and treatment of emerging and alternative energy technologies. This creates a more predictable environment for investment, supports a diversified and sustainable energy sector, and contributes to improved energy access and long-term security of supply,” said Mr Mazambani.
But generating more electricity will not, by itself, solve the country’s power problem.
NDS2 recognises the importance of moving electricity to where it is needed. The Government plans to expand the national transmission grid by 1 715km, while upgrading infrastructure to reduce technical losses and improve reliability.
The strategy also targets electricity access rising from 62 percent of the population in 2022 to 100 percent by 2030, while the rate of energy supply is targeted to increase from 66,7 percent to 100 percent.
That emphasis is particularly important for rural Zimbabwe, where NDS2 plans to use the six-percent rural electrification levy and annual Budget allocations to extend grid access to previously underserved communities.
Zera has also gazetted Statutory Instrument 120 of 2026 to regulate electric vehicles in relation to their charging stations.
Mr Mazambani said the growth of electric vehicles made regulation necessary.
“Statutory Instrument 120 of 2026 is significant because it establishes a regulatory framework for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in Zimbabwe,” said Mr Mazambani.
“ As the adoption of electric vehicles grows, the regulations provide clear requirements for the licensing, installation, operation and safety of EV charging stations, ensuring that charging infrastructure develops in a safe, reliable and orderly manner.”
He said the regulations addressed a major gap in the emerging electric-mobility market.
“The regulations address a key gap by introducing standards and regulatory oversight for EV charging stations, an area that previously lacked a dedicated legal framework,” he said.
“This provides certainty for investors and service providers, promotes consumer safety and confidence, supports investment in EV infrastructure, and positions Zimbabwe to embrace cleaner transport technologies in line with the country’s energy transition and sustainable development objectives.”