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Table of Contents

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..iii Glossary…………………………………………………………………………………………..iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………vi Chapter 1:Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1

1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Objectives for the study .................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Structure of the report ...................................................................................................... 6

Chapter 2: Priority Sustainable Development Issues in the Sub-region…………………………..7

2.1 Overview of Southern Africa ........................................................................................... 7 2.2 Progress on human development ...................................................................................... 8 2.3 Issues and Challenges ....................................................................................................... 9

2.3.1 Economic issues and challenges ................................................................................... 10 2.3.2 Social issues and challenges ......................................................................................... 11 2.3.3 Environmental issues ..................................................................................................... 14 2.3.4Governance ...................................................................................................................... 16

2.4 Overall issues and challenges on SD .............................................................................. 18

Chapter 3: Priority SDG Areas/Themes…………………………………………………………20

3.1 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) ..................................................... 20 3.2 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) .................................... 21 3.3 Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) ...................................................................... 21 3.4 National Development Priorities ................................................................................... 22 3.5 The Future We Want ...................................................................................................... 23 3.6 Setting regional sustainable development priorities ....................................................... 25

Chapter 4: Sustainable Development Goals, Targets and Indicators…………………………….31

4.1 Guiding Principles .......................................................................................................... 31 4.2 SDGs, targets and indicators .......................................................................................... 33 4.3 Implementing SDGs ....................................................................................................... 37

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Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations…………………………………………………40 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………..43 Annex 1: Semi-structured Questionnaire………………………………………………………...46 Annex 2: List of Contacts………………………………………………………………………..48

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List of Tables Table 1: General data on Southern Africa .................................................................................................... 7 Table 2: Country Rankings on HDI and GNI ............................................................................................... 8 Table 3: Indicators on development issues ................................................................................................. 10 Table 4: Selected Social Indicators ............................................................................................................ 12 Table 5: Governance ranking and scores ................................................................................................... 17 Table 6: Malawi's development priorities .................................................................................................. 24 Table 7: Sustainable development prioritization........................................................................................ 29 Table 8: SD Themes and goals .................................................................................................................. 34 Table 9: SDGs, Targets and Indicators ...................................................................................................... 35 Table 10: SD dimensions and goals ............................................................................................................ 37

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Glossary

AfDB African Development Bank APRM African Peer Review Mechanism AU African Union AUC Africa Union Commission CBD Convention on Biological Diversity COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa CSD Commission on Sustainable Development CSO Civil Society Organization EIA Environmental Impact Assessment EU European Union GCM Global Climate Model GDP Gross Domestic Product GNP Gross National Product GNI Gross National Income GEF Global Environment Facility GNP Gross National Product HDI Human Development Index HDR Human Development Report IIAG Ibrahim Index on Africa Governance JPOI Johannesburg Plan of Implementation MDGs Millennium Development Goals MGDS Malawi Growth and Development Strategy NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development OAU Organization of African Unity ODA Official Development assistance OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development PRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers RECs Regional Economic Communities RIM Regional Implementation Meeting RISDP Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan SACU Southern Africa Customs Union SADC Southern Africa Development Community SD Sustainable Development UNCSD United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development UNDESA-DSD United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs-

Division for Sustainable Development UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

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UNEP United Nations Environment Programme UNGA United Nations General Assembly UNICEF United Nations Children Fund WCED World Council on Environment and Development WFP World Food Programme WHO World Health Organisation WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study set out to identify sustainable development goals for Southern Africa that would help to prepare African countries to effectively engage in the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) process. The study was done using extensive literature review, key informant interviews and collecting data through a questionnaire. The study was limited by: inadequate technical expertise among key informants who could articulate comprehensively on major aspects of sustainable development; finding easily comparable information from member states and regional bodies. As a consequence, while priority SDG issues and themes have been identified, it has not been possible to rank them. Southern Africa’s major economic activities are services (51 percent GDP) followed by industry (32 percent). Agriculture comes in third place at 17 percent. The Sub-region has also posted positive economic growth since 2000, the highest being over 6 percent in 2006 and 2007. It is a diverse region in terms of history and economic achievements despite the fact that member countries share largely similar climatic conditions. Some countries rank very high on the Human Development Index (HDI), as high as 80 but some are ranked towards the bottom, as low as 185. In terms of income, the range is from as high as $13,049 to as low as $753. Southern Africa has done much better than the entire Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of human development over the last twenty years, even though both Southern and Sub-Saharan Africa have been outpaced by South Asia. On the negative side, the Sub-region is a net importer and frequently incurs fiscal deficits (nearly 4 percent in 2012); development seems to be associated with a high debt ratio of 40 percent GDP; and improvements in HDI have been associated with extensive environmental degradation.

The key issues affecting the Sub-region are high poverty; income inequality; limited value addition (minerals and agriculture); high unemployment; and limited diversification, on the economic front. On the social front, high incidence of disease probably related to or being worsened by HIV and AIDs; poor health service delivery; and, enrolment in education beyond primary school; increasing gender based violence as well as a persistent gender gap in wealth distribution and decision making at various levels. On the environmental front, extensive loss of forests and its related environmental impacts, deteriorating biodiversity and quality of the ecosystems; the impact of climate change, low energy consumption levels and narrowly focused economic and sectoral policies that do not prioritise environmental management. Finally, on governance, poor funding and weak capacity of institutions involved in service delivery, especially those involved in environmental management and mainstreaming sectors; poor public sector and rural sector management; prevalence of fragmentation, overlap, duplication and competition between institutions.

Given the issues facing the region, the following six priority themes have been identified for sustainable development: poverty eradication; education and technical skills; gender equality and social inclusion; health and nutrition; environmental sustainability; and governance. As a consequence, and based on the Millennium Declaration, Agenda 21, the Rio Principles, and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), the study has come up with six SDGs, namely,

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i. Sustainable poverty eradication; ii. Improved learning (education and technical) attainment;

iii. Promote gender equality and social inclusion; iv. Improved health and nutrition status; v. Ensure environmental sustainability; and,

vi. Improved governance.

The overall design of SDGs has been based on a unified concept of the ultimate goals of human development, which is improved human wellbeing. Some of the major strengths of MDGs that led to their high level global acceptance, like parsimony, measured outcomes, have been retained. The main recommendations of this study have come in connection with the implementation of the SDGs and these are:

i) The system of monitoring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the global level, beginning with country assessments at an annual basis, and ending up with high level plenary reports at the regional and global level should be maintained. However, the proposal is that they should take place either once in two or three years. For this to succeed, governments should consciously invest in a real-time reporting system for the SDGs to produce regular and reliable data on a yearly basis where possible by taking advantage of the advent of the mobile phone, wireless broadband, and remote sensing. A program of action to produce regular and reliable data, led and designed at the regional level by UN or AU bodies, and streamlined at national level, could assist.

ii) There is need to make use of SDGs in the formulating national budgets and in

helping to balance economic, social and environmental pillars in policy making. Advocacy by UN agencies through Ministers of Finance and Parliaments is crucial for this to be attained.

iii) Targets should be common but differentiated in terms of indicators depending on

country characteristics and level of development. This means that targets for the global level can be set just like it was done for the MDGs, but targets for each country should be different and based on their baselines. This effort can be technically led by UN Regional bodies and streamlined for the benefit of individual countries. Left to themselves, countries may set up easily achievable targets; but left to externals, unrealistic targets may be set. There is need for an independent forum – perhaps a review council or commission of government and non-government representatives at regional level - to set agreeable and realistic indicator targets for each country.

iv) There is need to mobilize more resources to finance implementation and

monitoring and evaluation of the SGDs. Individual country commitments on finance should be a priority, seconded by Official Development Assistance (ODA) where it is forthcoming. There is need for a regional fund to be established

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in this connection that could be accessed by regional and specific country initiatives for purposes of promoting data collection and analysis of SDGs. UNECA can take the lead for exploring arrangements for such a fund, with support from other regional institutions.

v) The second pressing need is on technical skills: capacity building will be required

in terms of training on defining indicators and collection of data. The continuous development and refinement of indicators, their effective use, and indeed the effective integration of all dimensions of sustainable development, depend upon the commitment and capacity of people on the ground. A capacity building program on monitoring and evaluation needs to be developed at the Regional level, led by an institution like ECA or AU, and this can be streamlined into plans at the national level.

vi) There is need for continuous review of indicators and some targets and this can be

handled by institutional expertise in the relevant areas, perhaps through internal or intra-office consultations, across regional and national institutions, with limited external assistance. As will be noticed for some goals, especially the new one on governance, not many of the suggested indicators are being collected currently. Training on how to collect data for new indicators in each country context will be vital and needs to be carried early before time for reporting.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Background

1.1.1 The Process of Developing Sustainable Development Goals The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) of June 2012 held in Brazil was a major land mark in the pursuit for sustainable development and translating it into concrete results at global, regional and national levels. The conference adopted an outcome document entitled “The future we want” which was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and this gave greater impetus to the follow-up to and implementation of the commitments agreed at Rio+20, among which was the elaboration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs are deemed useful for pursuing focused and coherent action on sustainable development by integrating its three dimensions: economic, social and environmental. The aim is to guide and contribute to transformative change as stipulated in the Rio+20 outcome document, in support of rights-based, equitable and inclusive processes that enhance sustainability at global, regional, national and local levels. Rio+20 therefore emphasized among others that these goals should address and incorporate in a balanced way all three dimensions of sustainable development and their inter-linkages. Rio+20 also recognized that the goals should be coherent with and integrated into the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015, thus contributing to the achievement of sustainable development and serving as a driver for implementation and mainstreaming of sustainable development in the United Nations system as a whole. Rio+20 resolved to establish an inclusive and transparent intergovernmental process on sustainable development goals that is open to all stakeholders, with a view to developing global SDGs to be agreed by the UNGA. As such an open working group comprising 30 representatives nominated by Member States from the five United Nations regional groups, will propose the sustainable development goals for the consideration and appropriate action of the UNGA. Rio+20 also recognized that progress towards the achievement of the SDGs needs to be assessed and accompanied by targets and indicators, while taking into account different national circumstances, capacities and levels of development.

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1.1.2 Rationale for the Study As a follow-up to the Rio+20 outcomes, ECA in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) organized the Africa Regional Implementation Meeting (Africa-RIM) in November 2012, to deliberate on the main outcomes of Rio+20 and their implications for Africa. This multi-stakeholder meeting adopted the Africa RIM Outcome Document for the post Rio+20 follow-up processes including the Twentieth Session of the UN Commission (CSD-20). It represents among others, Africa’s collective input to the CSD-20 and the UN General Assembly processes on Rio+20 follow-up, including the sustainable development goals. On the SDGs, the Africa RIM reaffirmed the principles that the goals should be based on and identified broad priority areas for Africa that should be covered by the goals. The RIM called on the international community to provide Africa with adequate support toenable the region establish and implement an effective, broad-based bottom-up consultative process to flesh out goals, indicators and targets that should underpin the SDGs. An effective bottom-up process was considered pertinent in the case of Africa in order to:

(i) Effectively prepare Africa to speak with one strong voice to articulate and rally international support around SDGs that are well aligned with its sustainable development priorities.

(ii) Lay a firm foundation for the ownership, championship, domestication and implementation of activities toward the achievement of the SDGs by regional and sub-regional organizations, African countries and major groups;

(iii) Mobilize, enhance understanding and strengthen capacity of regional and sub-regional organizations, African countries and major groups on the development and subsequent implementation of programmes and activities towards the achievement of SDGs in particular and sustainable development in general; and

(iv) Enhance linkages between national - sub-regional - regional and global levels. Against this backdrop, the preparation of this report for Southern Africa was commissioned as an input to prepare Southern African countries to effectively engage in the global SDG process and ensure that the goals to be agreed upon are well aligned with Africa’s sustainable development priorities. This sub-regional review Report will be presented at the Africa Regional Consultative Meeting on the SDGs scheduled for 31 October to 5 November 2013. Together with reports of other four sub-regions, this report will inform the preparation of a consolidated regional report on SDGs. The outcome document of this consultative meeting will serve as a reference document and Africa’s collective input to the work of the Open Working Group on SDGs.

1.2 Objectives for the study

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are intended to advance sustainable development (SD) at the global level by integrating, as conceptualised in early stages, the three component dimensions of economic growth, social well-being and environmental protection. According to WCED (1987), sustainable development entails protection of the environment and natural


resources as well as providing social and economic welfare to the present and subsequent generations. Sustainable development is also understood in terms of being socially just and ethically acceptable. Governance, which comprises institutions, decision making processes, legislation, and the rule of law, among others, is considered as an overarching dimension of sustainable development.2 The overall objective of the study was to produce this well-informed analytical report on SDGs for the Southern Africa sub-region that will help relevant authorities to:

Identify and analyse the priority sustainable development issues and challenges in the sub-region;

Identify, analyse and articulate main priority areas/themes of sustainable development for Southern Africa to inform the formulation of the SDGs taking into account data availability;

Propose a concise set of SDGs and associated targets and indicators for the sub-region;

Provide well-informed, action-oriented recommendations and way forward on the implementation of the proposed SDGs in the context of the sub-region.

1.3 Methodology

1.3.1 Conceptual Approach to the assignment

The development of SDGs is a global effort taking shape at the time when the millennium development goals (MDGs) are coming to an end in 2015. The MDGs have been crucial in encouraging global political consensus, providing a focus for advocacy, improving the targeting and flow of aid, and improving the monitoring of development programs.3 But MDGs have largely been criticised for being donor-driven, encouraging fragmentation in development efforts, and paying little attention to local context in terms of targets. It is partly for this reason that the development of SDGs should be tailored to national circumstances and priorities, treating countries differently (Johannesburg Global Summit 2011). The Rio+20 outcome document emphasises the need for SDGs that are grounded in common values and relevant science. Also stressed in the outcome document is the need for SDGs to be complementary and in sync with the MDGs and this also applies to their respective indicators. A conceptual framework that represents key domains of sustainable development and inter-linkages between the domains is equally flagged. As already stated in the introduction, the concept of SD encompasses three main dimensions of welfare - economic, environmental and social, and involves complex inter-linkages and trade-offs among them. In this study, data collection was guided by a simple conceptual framework illustrated in Figure 1 below.

2 The literature on the inclusion of governance is still not conclusive on whether it is overarching, or cross-cutting or both. 3 Lancet and London International Development Centre Commission. The Millennium Development Goals: a cross-sectoral analysis and principles for goal setting after 2015, September 2010.


Figure 1: A Conceptual Framework of Sustainable Development

Figure 1 simply shows that sustainable development is concerned with the intersection or balance of economic, environmental and social dimensions of development; none of these dimensions should be pursued at the expense of others. All of these interact within a governance system. Conceptualised simply, economic systems are essentially products of, and dependent on social systems, which in turn are products of, and dependent on natural systems. They share some common areas but they also have unique features. The economic dimension refers to the production of marketable/exchangeable goods and services and the flow of these goods and services through the formal and informal sector. The social dimension refers to human capacities, skills and resources which are necessary for productive work and the creation of a reasonable quality of life. It incorporates the institutions, networks and relationships that support human activity (and human efforts to secure livelihoods) and enables access to resources and participation in decision-making. The natural environment dimension refers to the natural resources (matter and energy) and ecosystem processes that maintain life and produce and deliver goods and services. The governance dimension comprises the institutions, processes, systems and mechanisms through which development is managed and through which citizens articulate their interests and exercise their responsibilities.

1.3.2 Approaches to Data Collection

The participation of different stakeholders in designing locally-led and owned SDGs is essential. Many individual countries have already set their development strategies and priorities based on their own needs to improve the economic welfare and livelihoods of their citizens in a sustainable manner. From such national plans and priorities, it was possible to identify a few selected common priority themes at the regional and continental levels that would inform the formulation of the SDGs at the global level. This bottom up approach has national level participation and ownership while linking up to the global level to meet the requirements for sustainable development. Participatory approaches involving a combination of methods applied at various levels (national and sub-regional) with multi-stakeholders (Government, civil society, regional bodies and

GOVERNANCE

ECONOMIC

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT


donors) and across SD dimensions were adopted. The following pages provide a brief outline of each method and key issues investigated. Literature Review A comprehensive desk review was conducted to identify and analyse priority sustainable development issues and challenges in the sub-region as specified in the terms of reference. Literature was sourced from UNECA, SADC secretariat, its partners, and national, regional and international bodies. In this respect, literature on development strategies; key plans and programmes on sustainable development like Climate Change Adaptation Programmes where available, national annual MDG Progress reports; reports on current on-going consultations in each country on ‘The Future We Want’ were consulted. Regional and Country Consultations Telephone consultations and questionnaires at national level targeted relevant departments such as Ministries of National Planning and Development; Energy; Social Development and Gender, and Ministries of Finance; environment civil society organisations (CSOs) involved in sustainable development and environmental issues, private sector organisations from selected counties within the region, namely: Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia. The telephone interviews were guided by a structured questionnaire similar to the multiple choice questionnaire that was circulated to nearly all countries in the region. Country respondents to the questionnaires were encouraged to consult competent authorities on specific questions in areas that were not within their jurisdiction or competency. However, some contacts responded in their professional capacity and made individual contacts to provide answers. Nearly a period of three weeks was given for country respondents to answer the multiple choice questionnaire. The responses from each country questionnaire were augmented by literature review on country specific issues for purposes of triangulation. In some countries, like Malawi, where respondents did not answer as a team, divergent answers were resolved by follow ups and further country specific literature review. Questionnaires were coded in a simple MS Excel spreadsheet for purposes of analysis. Telephone conversations included development partner representatives at the regional and country levels, government representatives, and civil-society organisations (CSOs) involved in sustainable development and environmental issues. COMESA, SADC, and NEPAD were contacted and interviewed using a key informant guide. Challenges for the study It has been extremely difficult to find key informants who are comprehensively informed and equipped on the major aspects of this study on sustainable development: national policy setting, policy prioritization, setting indicators and their targets, and monitoring and evaluation. More informants on specific issues had to be sought, and key informants were allowed to consult others on the specific issues beyond their competence. However, responses were slow. In the interest of time, and managing within the limited budget for the study, a short multiple choice questionnaire was introduced while relying on extensive literature review to fill in the gaps.


Slightly over half the contacts responded to the questionnaire either individually or as a (country) team. Another challenge arose in compiling this report which was access to comparable information from member states and regional bodies. Each has its own national development strategy or regional development strategy, with both common and different priorities in terms of number and coverage, and also in terms of definitions/categorization. Each has a different institutional set-up and capacity, to the extent that some were unable to provide the required documents, or respond to the multiple choice questionnaire. The Internet was a valuable source of information and complemented the documents and information received. It has been difficult to prioritise SDG issues in terms of ranking simply because even in the countries’ national development strategies or strategic plans of regional bodies no criteria is provided for prioritisation. This is even complicated by short run and long run considerations: for some, as an example, poverty reduction is a long term rather than short term priority. A lot of issues are similar across different countries but they do not seem to be given the same priority or order of ranking by different stakeholders. This report therefore only states the important priority issues on sustainable development in the sub-region without ranking them.

1.4 Structure of the report

There are five chapters to this report beginning with the introduction. The next chapter is on priority sustainable development challenges and issues in the Southern Africa sub-region; Chapter 3 is on the main priority sustainable development themes; in Chapter 4, sustainable development goals, targets and indicators are discussed; and in Chapter 5 conclusion and recommendations are presented.


Chapter 2: Priority Sustainable Development Issues in the Sub-region

2.1 Overview of Southern Africa

The data in Table 1 shows that the Region’s major economic activities are services (51 percent GDP) followed by industry (32 percent). Agriculture comes in third place at 17 percent. The Region has also posted positive economic growth since 2000, the highest being over 6 percent in 2006 and 2007. On the negative side, the Region is a net importer and frequently incurs fiscal deficits (nearly 4 percent in 2012). Its development seems to be associated with a high debt ratio of 40 percent GDP. As will be noted in the following sections, this overall performance masks stark differences between countries in the Region. For example, the largest economic sector in Malawi is agriculture, and not services. Table 1 below shows the overall socio-economic performance of Southern Africa. Table 1: General data on Southern Africa

Indicator Data Indicator DataMember states 15 Trade imports US$ 91 billion

Trade exports US$ 89 billionYear Established 1992 Avg Govt Debt (2011; %

of GDP) 40.4%

Land Area 554 919 km² Average Life Expectancy (2009)

55.1

Total Population 277 million Average HIV Prevalence Rate (2009)

12.6 %

GDP Annual Growth Rate (2011)

5.14 % Gender (seats held by women in Parliament - 2011)

34%

GDP (2010) US$ 575.5 billion GDP Contribution: Services

51 %

Inflation (2011) 7.7 % GDP Contribution: Industry

32 %

Fiscal Balance (2012)

-3.6 % GDP Contribution: Agriculture

17 %

Source: www.sadc.int Southern Africa is a diverse region in terms of individual country history and economic achievements despite sharing largely similar climatic conditions. Some countries rank very high on the Human Development Index (HDI), as high as 80 for Mauritius; but there are quite a number of others which rank towards the bottom, as low as 185 for Mozambique. In terms of income (using GNP per capita US$ purchasing power parity), the range is from as high as $13,049 for Botswana to as low as $753 for Malawi. These differences are captured in Table 2 below.


Table 2: Country Rankings on HDI and GNI COUNTRY HDI Rank GNP per

capita (US$)Mauritius 80 12918Botswana 119 13049Namibia 128 6206South Africa 121 9469Swaziland 141 4484Angola 148 4874Lesotho 158 1664Zambia 163 1254Malawi 170 753Zimbabwe 173 376Mozambique 185 898Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2013, 2012. The country differences shown in Table 2 above should be kept in mind when considering the regions overall performance on development shown in Table 1 above.

2.2 Progress on human development

To some extent, the human development index (HDI) provides a starting point but not a comprehensive measure of sustainable development4. The performance of Southern Africa compared to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is shown in Figure 1 below.

4 HDI captures economic and social dimensions of sustainable development, only missing out the environment and governance. UNDP has already started work on extending the HDI to include main sustainability issues into what is called Sustainable Human Development Index (SHDI). This will include measurements of carbon dioxide emissions, water consumption, land area and crop area, inequality among others.

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Table 3: Indicators on development issues

COUNTRY Population Poverty rate (%)

Forest Change

(%)

Population growth (%)

Dependency Ratio (%)

2012 2002-12 1990/2010 2010/15 2012Mauritius 1.3 1.5 -9.8 0.5 39.6Botswana 2.1 20.7 -17.3 1.1 56.7Namibia 2.4 38 -16.8 1.7 64.8South Africa 50.7 23 0 0.5 52.9Swaziland 1.2 69.2 19.3 1.4 69.4Angola 20.2 40.5 -4.1 2.7 93.9Lesotho 2.2 56.6 10 1 69.1Zambia 13.9 59.3 -6.3 3 99Malawi 15.9 52.4 -16.9 3.2 96.3Zimbabwe 13 79.2 -29.5 2 71.6Mozambique 24.5 54.7 -10 2.2 89.1Southern Africa average

13.4 45.0 -7.4 1.75 72.9

Southern Africa total 147.4 Sub-Saharan Africa 852.5 48.5 -10.4 2.5 83.4South Asia 1753 2.4 1.4 54.6Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2013. For purposes of discussion, we discuss the indicators in Table 3 in the context of three areas of sustainable development: economic, social and environment.

2.3.1 Economic issues and challenges

Southern Africa’s average poverty rate,6 45 percent, is not very far different from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa even though it is lower. It is practically more than half of the population below the poverty line in most of the countries and this has been the situation for over the last decade or longer. In the face of improvements in human development, which includes economic growth, the implication is that the failure to reduce poverty substantially for the majority of the population is due to income inequality. Economic benefits are being taken by smaller proportion of the population. But given the experience in other parts of the world, there is a strong possibility that economic policies and/or their implementation may be playing a bigger role. Southern Africa’s base for economic production is dominated by raw materials either from agriculture or mining. There is limited value addition on minerals, and regional trade largely revolves around one country - South Africa. Agriculture production is largely focused on achieving food security, and for a number of countries like Malawi and Zambia, it is dependent

6 Based on US$1.25 PPP, except for the first four middle income countries where US$ 2 PPP is used.


on subsidized agricultural inputs. The top HDI ranked country in the region – Mauritius – is largely unique because of its diversified economic base comprised of commercial agriculture, tourism and services. The countries that are dependent on minerals have been easily affected by the global financial crisis because most of the minerals are exported outside Africa. Despite its strong economy, South Africa has been affected recently with social unrest and the euro-crisis causing the depreciation of the Rand and increasing the cost of living. South Africa faces the triple challenge of chronic high unemployment, poverty and inequality amid a slow and volatile domestic and global economic environment.7 The country’s extractive industry continues to operate below potential due to the lack of technological progress and policy uncertainty. Botswana’s economy has recently also been adversely affected by the global slowdown, which led to a decline in the country’s major export commodity, diamonds; real GDP registered lower growth at 5.8 percent and is expected be lower in the short-term. Namibia’s economic growth has recovered from the impact of the global economic crisis, but moderated in 2012.Downside risks stemming from global uncertainties still remain and the country needs to put in place stronger policies and strategies for managing its available mineral resources and promoting value addition of mining products in order to make growth more inclusive. Zambia’s economic growth accelerated to 7.3 percent in 2012 and is expected to remain strong. However, there are still challenges on the economic and governance landscape, and no significant gains in social and human development given its high poverty headcount. To sum up, the challenges for Southern Africa on the economic front are:

• High poverty • Income inequality • Limited value addition (minerals and agriculture) • High unemployment • Limited diversification

2.3.2 Social issues and challenges

Table 3 captures only one of the major issues on the social dimension of development and that is population. Population becomes a social challenge only when its growth cannot be sustained by available economic means. As shown in Table 3, the average population growth for the region, at 1.75, is below the Sub-Saharan Africa average, and for several individual countries it is below 3 percent. The countries with 3 percent population growth, Malawi and Zambia, have had average economic growth of more than 3 percent over the recent years. It is expected that many countries should be able to sustain economic growth rates higher than population growth in the medium term. The major challenge on the social side is the high dependency ratio: the labour force (15 – 64 years) may be too small to sustain further economic growth. Labour is a major component of factors of production and very critical to sustain high levels of investment.

7 www.afdb.org/en/southern africa. This is the source of all other brief country descriptions and data in this paragraph.


The other main indicators on the social dimension of development, like education, health and gender, are presented in Table 4 below. The indicators chosen are on life expectancy, literacy rate and gender inequality. Table 4: Selected Social Indicators

COUNTRY Life expectancy

(yrs)

Literacy rate (%)

Gender Inequality

Index 2012 2002-12 2012 Mauritius 73.5 88.5 0.377 Botswana 53.0 84.5 0.485 Namibia 62.6 88.8 0.455 South Africa 53.4 88.7 0.462 Swaziland 48.9 87.4 0.525 Angola 51.5 70.1 .. Lesotho 48.7 89.6 0.534 Zambia 47.4 71.2 0.623 Malawi 54.8 74.8 0.573 Zimbabwe 52.7 92.2 0.544 Mozambique 50.7 56.1 0.582 Southern Africa average

54.29 81.08 0.516

Sub-Saharan Africa 54.9 63 0.577 South Asia 66.2 62.8 0.568 Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2013. Table 4 shows that Southern Africa does better than Sub-Saharan Africa on literacy rate and gender inequality, but practically the same on life expectancy. The literacy rate for the region is even far much better than South Asia. Three Southern Africa countries – Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa rank below 100 in the world on the gender inequality index. There are outstanding challenges that these indicators show, especially issues to do with life expectancy. Life expectancy has been used as a proxy for the health situation in Southern Africa, and in this case there are signs that health systems or delivery may not be much different from the rest of Africa. Except for Mauritius and Namibia, the rates for the region’s medium and low income countries are not much different and not encouraging. While progress has been made to improve health outcomes, many challenges still exist. Health systems are still weak and the region still faces an increasing burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, recurrent epidemics such as cholera and other humanitarian crises. The HIV and AIDs epidemic has taken a significant toll on the region among other issues to do with health service delivery. Malawi, for example, continues to face critical shortages of professional medical staff at many levels and a failure to delivery adequate drugs to hospitals. Countries like Zimbabwe and Zambia seem to


share these same problems. On the whole, HIV prevention programmes have not yet adequately reached the most at risk populations including the youth, sex workers, drug users and prisoners.8

On education, adult literacy rates are reasonably impressive, with some of the region’s low income countries like Zimbabwe and Lesotho doing even better than the medium income countries. The challenge appears to be gross enrolment at secondary level and above. For example, Malawi’s secondary school gross enrolment is at 32 percent, and that for Mozambique is 25 percent.9 For the same countries, respectively, primary school enrolment is 135 percent and 115 percent. The middle income countries of the region have gross enrolment at secondary school of 94 percent (South Africa) and 89 percent (Mauritius).

Gender inequality remains a major challenge for achieving sustainable development in the sub-region. The rationale for gender equality has at least three dimensions; as a rights issue, an economic issue and a social issue. In particular, gender equality is relevant to the future growth and stability of economies in the region. In fact, gender empowerment is an established regional priority at the political level and there is a strong degree of political commitment within the region to the empowerment of women both as a human rights and a development issue. In this context, the significance of gender empowerment is more to do with the need for national level political drive and commitment rather than a demand on more tangible resources, such as budgetary commitments.

Many gender policies and instruments have been at national levels. SADC has advanced in this area, with most if not all countries signatory to international conventions. At Member State levels, noticeable political interest on gender issues is to be commended. Despite such strides having been made, in terms of status and control over resources, women remain marginalised. The lack of tangible progress in public action reinforces the need to systematically mainstream gender equality in all aspects of sustainable development. As often realized, gender considerations are many times an “add on” element to already designed programmes and interventions. This requires a much vigorous and bolder undertaking to address the persistent inequalities that exist in the region.

Gender based violence, unequal distribution of wealth and a wide gender gaps in participation and decision making at all levels are the major challenges in the region. SADC defines Gender Based Violence (GBV) as all acts perpetuated against women, men, boys and girls on the basis of their sex which causes or could cause them physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or economic harm. It covers domestic violence, sexual harassment in the workplace, human trafficking and sexual and emotional abuse and others. Gender based violence seems to the most critical issue which is also widespread in the sub-region and presents a major obstacle to attaining gender equality and equity. The SADC Protocol on Gender and Development has set specific targets, to be attained by 2015 and aims to eliminate Gender Based Violence at every level but the challenge has been around implementation.

8 WHO, 2010: Achieving Sustainable Health Development in the African Region – Strategic Directions for WHO 2010-2015. 9 Source: UNDP HDR 2013.


Poverty statistics for Southern Africa show women as the majority of the poor. As such any poverty eradication and economic growth policy must include a gender analysis lens. It is for this reason that Governments in Southern Africa need to reinforce political commitment to support and empower women. Economic empowerment of women not only positively impacts their own life situations but is also central to mobilising their potential for sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Gender equality at the economic level therefore contributes directly to the reduction of poverty and overall sustainable development.

In terms of achieving gender equity in political participation, the sub-region is performing better than other regions especially as it relates to decision making in the corporate world as well community levels. Despite this progress, the gender gap in participation and decision making between men and women is still huge and needs to be addressed.

To sum up, the challenges for Southern Africa on the social front are:

• High incidence of communicable and non-communicable diseases probably related to or being worsened by HIV and AIDs

• Poor health service delivery • Low enrolment in education beyond

primary school • Gender Based Violence • Unequal distribution of wealth between

gender • Wide gender gap in participation and

decision making at various levels

2.3.3 Environmental issues The weakest point for Southern Africa is the environment and this is clear from the data presented in Table 3. The region may have progressed at no small cost to her forests, even though at 7.4 percent per year the forest loss is only

An Integrated Approach to Environmental Management in the SADC Region The Environment and Land Management (ELMS) Program evolved from the mid-1980's under the previous SADCC mandate and structure. Over the years, the Program gradually expanded without a comprehensive SADC policy or integrated strategic framework. As unsustainable development accelerated throughout the region, neither the national environment agencies nor the regional ELMS Program had the financial or staff resources to cope with the backlog and escalating pace of environmental degradation. The largest resource in the region, the energy and talents of local people who are directly involved in the use of natural resources, remained largely untapped because participatory approaches to research, planning, decision-making and implementation were either lacking or under developed.

In the early 1990s, SADC issued a new policy for increased agricultural production and sustainable use of the environment and natural resource base. A new SADC policy and strategy for environmental and natural resource management for equitable and sustainable development is clearly both necessary and timely. The main aim of a new SADC policy and strategy is to support the overall goals of achieving development that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

Although environmental sustainability is the starting point and main focus for a new regional environmental policy, it must also take into account the equally important economic and social sustainability dimensions. Similarly, new SADC economic and social policies must also incorporate environmental sustainability concerns. Economic, social and environmental sustainability are together the three crucial components of a single integrated agenda for sustainable development in the SADC region. A new SADC policy for environment and natural resource management is not and cannot be separate. The new SADC policy must be developed and implemented as an integrated part of a larger SADC agenda and strategy for equity-led growth and sustainable development within and among the countries of the SADC region.

Source: www.sadc.org (abridged version)


slightly better than Sub-Saharan Africa (10.4 percent).10 Perhaps some cause for discomfiture comes from South Asia, which has a higher population and has outpaced the region on human development, and yet has recorded a forest gain of 2.84 percent.11 The data indicates that Southern Africa’s development has taken a huge toll on the environment, and it is important to prioritise the environment in future plans of development. Table 3 shows that there has been extensive forest cover loss in both mining and agriculture-based countries in Southern Africa. The high poverty rates in the region may have compromised the need for or prioritization of environmental issues in development strategies. For example, Malawi has only prioritized the environment in the current development strategy running from 2006 to 2016, otherwise the previous two national development strategies (Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy 2002-05; and Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (2006-2011) simply mention the environment without giving it priority consideration. Climate change is also a central environmental concern and cause of poverty, and a growing threat to any sustainable future for the region. The extent and diversity of the climate change threat to southern African livelihoods is increasingly becoming more apparent. With various Global Climate Models (GCMs) predicting an increased warming and greater rainfall variability in the sub-region, this is expected to affect all aspects of the economy of member states. In this respect, it is largely considered a cross cutting issue. Although not consistent across the region, evidence shows the extent of the impacts will vary between countries. The effects of changing temperatures and precipitation patterns will be felt in various sectors, including agriculture, forests, biodiversity and ecosystems, coasts, human settlements, water resources, and human health. Agriculture, the mainstay of African economies and livelihoods is facing the greatest threat of climate change. At a general level, agriculture faces a serious decline from global warming and Sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to suffer an average of 10-25% decline in agricultural productivity by 2080s (Cline, 2007). Energy is a key driver for economic growth. Southern Africa is rich in renewable and non-renewable energy resources. The region is rich in coal, oil and natural gas hydrocarbon resources, as well as significant deposits of uranium, a source of nuclear energy (Merven et al., 2010). Southern Africa also has significant coal reserves, with the exception of Angola, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius and Namibia. Angola is the region’s only significant producer of crude oil, while DRC also produces small volumes that are exported. However, the majority of Southern Africa’s renewable energy is derived from hydroelectric power stations and biomass, with solar and wind currently contributing negligible amounts to the region’s energy supply (ibid). Although rich in natural resources, energy access and utilisation is low (less than 1%) by world Standards. Outside of South Africa, power consumption averages 124 kilowatt-hours per person per year or just about enough to power one light bulb per person for six hours a day (ADB, 2010). Africa’s infrastructure gap is a key constraint on the region’s economic growth potential and efforts to achieve sustainable development. The development and supply of energy in many parts of Southern Africa is still a critical resource constraint on development. This

10 The average for Southern Africa is somewhat misleading of the true picture, as it is based on country averages, otherwise it should be much higher. Swaziland and Lesotho are very small countries and they are the only two countries in the region with forest gains over this period. 11 At the world level, South America is next to Sub-Saharan Africa with 8.9 percent loss in forest cover.


involves developing infrastructure (n terms of transmission networks) and energy in sufficient quantities to meet demand. Forest loss is therefore not the only measure of the environment, or a comprehensive one for that matter. Other important indicators are carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, bio-diversity measures, natural resource depletion, fossil and renewable energy usage, clean water sources, and others. The main challenge with environmental indicators is availability of data for all countries and all times, an issue that is followed up in later sections of this study. The forest loss indicator shows that it is a good overall proxy indicator for the state of the environment for many Southern Africa countries. It shows at this stage the strong possibility that Southern Africa’s development trajectory has come at significant cost to the environment. The loss of forest cover leads to many other negative environmental conditions: soil and fertility losses, land degradation, water pollution, loss of natural habitat for animal species, and the like. The loss of forest cover reflects a very broad problem at policy level: economic, agricultural, energy, industrial and other- sectoral policies have failed to take into full account their adverse impacts on the environment and natural resource base needed for future development. To sum up, the major challenges on the environmental front for the region are the loss of forests and the related environmental conditions such as climate change and increasing energy access to development of infrastructure. This includes broadening the narrowly focused economic and sectoral policies to prioritise environmental issues. It is possible to reason from the region’s failure to conserve its forests that its mining endeavors may have been equally unsustainable because the same policy environment pervades all these areas. It will be important to develop, prioritise and implement pertinent policy measures – in all sectors of the economy - to resolve this problem.

2.3.4 Governance Governance is the overarching dimension for sustainable development. Economic, social and environmental programs take place within the context of governance and this is an area which has received limited attention in terms of monitoring and collection of data because of the difficulty of setting up agreeable indicators. Table 5 below shows the performance of Southern Africa countries on governance according to the Ibrahim Index of Africa Governance (IIAG). The IIAG is the most comprehensive collection of quantitative data on governance in Africa. Compiled in partnership with experts from a number of the continent's institutions, it provides an annual assessment of governance in every African country. The data are classified within four categories: Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development. Each criterion is weighted and scaled to provide standardization and proportional influence on the overall results of the index. Data is collected from all over the continent, and a particular year's index reflects data from two previous years to ensure the greatest possible accuracy.


Table 5: Governance ranking and scores

COUNTRY 2010 2012 Ran

k Score (out

of 100)Rank Score (out

of 100)Mauritius 1 82 1 83Botswana 3 74 3 77Namibia 6 67 6 70South Africa 5 70 5 71Swaziland 25 50 26 52Angola 43 39 40 44Lesotho 9 60 9 61Zambia 16 54 12 58Malawi 21 52 17 56Zimbabwe 50 32 47 34Mozambique 20 52 21 55Southern Africa 1 57 1 59Africa average 49 51No. of countries 53 52Source: Mo Ibrahim Foundation 2010, 2012. Africa is divided into five regions in line with Africa Development Bank groupings: North, West, Central, East and Southern Africa. According to Table 5, Southern Africa comes out first of the five African regions in both the 2010 and 2012 IIAG. All its member countries recorded improvements over the same period. The region performed strongly in all four categories, ranking in first place in safety and rule of law and in participation and human rights. The region ranked second place in the other two categories: sustainable economic opportunity and human development. Only Angola and Zimbabwe scored below the continental average in 2012. Southern Africa displays a relatively balanced and equitable governance performance with strong average regional performance in all categories and almost all underlying sub-categories. The region’s best performing country is Mauritius which ranked either first or second in all of the subcategories of the IIAG. Despite these relative achievements of Southern Africa, the region’s major challenges on governance are on sustainable economic opportunity and human development. Economic opportunities and human development for the region may not be sustained for future generations given the extensive

SADC Sustainable Development Success Stories Southern Africa has some isolated cases of success on sustainable development that can be duplicated or scaled up, so the overall picture is not entirely one of pessimism. The region has widely adopted the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Approach. This Approach to conservation and development recognizes the rights of local people to manage and benefit from the management and use of natural resources. Countries involved include Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia and Botswana. The region has also notable examples and best practices in governance to share with the rest of the African continent. For example, 7 out of a total of 29 African countries which have acceded to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) are from southern Africa. The best governed country in Africa, Mauritius, is from the same region including four other nations in the top ten ranking on governance. Source: UNECA - Progress towards Sustainable Development in Southern Africa, 2012.


environmental degradation for many of her member countries. Poor funding and weak capacity of institutions involved in service delivery, especially those involved in environmental management needs to be resolved. This would involve strengthening governance and capacities across all the mainstreaming sectors for the environment: agriculture, industry, and others. At the regional level, there is continued fragmentation, overlap, duplication and competition between institutions, in spite of the existence of good frameworks such as those of NEPAD and the RECS.

2.4 Overall issues and challenges on SD

This chapter has identified issues and challenges related to sustainable development in relation to its three interlinked pillars: economic, social and the environment, and the overarching governance sector. The following issues and challenges have been identified: Economic issues

• High poverty • Income inequality • Limited value addition (minerals and agriculture) • High unemployment • Limited diversification

Social issues

• High incidence of disease probably related to or being worsened by HIV and AIDs • Poor health service delivery • Low level of enrolment in education beyond primary school • Gender Based Violence • Unequal distribution of wealth between gender • Wide gender gap in participation and decision making at various levels

Environmental issues

• Extensive loss of forests and its related environmental impacts • Deteriorating biodiversity and quality of the ecosystems • The impact of climate change and climate variability • Low energy consumption levels despite the abundance in the resources • Narrowly focused economic and sectoral policies that do not prioritise environmental

conservation


Governance • Poor funding and weak capacity of institutions involved in service delivery, especially

those involved in environmental management and mainstreaming sectors: agriculture, industry, and others.

• Poor public sector and rural sector management • Prevalence of fragmentation, overlap, duplication and competition between institutions,

in spite of the existence of good frameworks such as those of NEPAD and the RECS


Chapter 3: Priority SDG Areas/Themes In order to identify sub-regional priorities for sustainable development in Southern Africa, it is important to understand the issues and challenges facing sustainable development outlined in the previous chapter and take an assessment as to whether they are being addressed in the existing national and regional plans for development. This will involve an assessment of the relevance of current prioritization of development issues and the identification of gaps. This section begins with a brief review of the strategic development plans of regional bodies to which individual countries belong and then proceed to the national development plans. The complexity here is that member states can belong to more than one regional body and such bodies do not share the same priorities among themselves and even with the member states either in the short term or long term.

3.1 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)

SADC has the membership of all countries that are designated to comprise the entire Southern Africa subregion for purposes of this study. SADC developed the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) whose major aim is to deepen regional integration in Southern Africa. It provides SADC Member States with a consistent and comprehensive programme of long-term economic and social policies. It also provides the Secretariat and other SADC institutions with a clear view of SADC’s approved economic and social policies and priorities. There are 13 regional priorities set out in the RISDP and these are:

i) Poverty eradication ii) Combating HIV and AIDS iii) Gender equality and development iv) Science and technology v) Statistics vi) Trade, economic liberalisation and development vii) Environment and sustainable development viii) Infrastructure development ix) Private-sector development x) Sustainable food security xi) Human and social development xii) Resource mobilisation xiii) Institutional framework

It is stated that priorities of RISDP have established through consultation with member countries,12 and the common elements in line with the vision of SADC have been prioritised. The listing seems too big to reflect prioritisation, and in practice, in terms of funding and actual routine activities, it may be possible that some priorities are falling in the cracks. The last six priorities require detail to understand: it does not look contextually admissible to state ‘human and social development’ - a very broad topic – at the same level as ‘gender equality and development’, or ‘statistics’, or ‘science and development’. There is a mixture of ‘ends’ and

12 There is no explanation how these consultations were carried out, nor who were the participants to the process.


‘means’ stated at the same level and this reflects conceptualisation challenges at the policy making level that will not be made any better during implementation.13

3.2 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)

Some members of SADC are also members of COMESA, the biggest regional economic grouping in Africa in terms of population and geographical coverage, which implies that they share in the development priorities of the COMESA region as enshrined in its medium term strategic development plan. The COMESA medium-term strategic plan focuses on addressing issues affecting ordinary people, such as poverty, public health, education, gender, children’s welfare, equal opportunities and international solidarity. Six strategic and priority areas that have been identified as key drivers in the COMESA Region are:

i) Removing barriers to trade; ii) Building productive capacity for global competitiveness; iii) Addressing supply-side constraints related to infrastructure; iv) Peace and security; v) Cross-cutting issues (gender and social affairs, climate change, statistical

development, knowledge-based society and human capital, cooperation and partnerships and aid for trade);

vi) Institutional development. Most of the issues may be seen to be common to SADC but one can already see a difference in prioritisation and terminology and this gets even starker in terms of actual activities being implemented by the two institutions. SADC has, for example, gender equality and development (in MDGs ‘gender equality and women empowerment’) as a stand-alone priority while COMESA has ‘gender and social affairs’ as one of its crosscutting issues.

3.3 Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU)

Some five members of SADC also belong to a special regional grouping called SACU (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland) and this has an influence on sub-regional priorities. The priority objectives of SACU are:

i) To facilitate the cross-border movement of goods between the territories of the Member States;

ii) To create effective, transparent and democratic institutions which will ensure equitable trade benefits to Member States;

iii) To promote conditions of fair competition in the Common Customs Area; iv) To substantially increase investment opportunities in the Common Customs Area; v) To enhance the economic development, diversification, industrialization and

Competitiveness of Member States; 13 In the worst case scenario, one perhaps does not care anything about writing policy statements or is not well equipped to enunciate them.


It is perhaps easy to say on face value that many of the priorities of SACU are the same as COMESA, as they are all concerned with trade facilitation. However, in practice and in terms of implementation, there are many differences in terms of programs of implementation and activities. The level of integration in SACU is much higher than what is happening under COMESA, and this has practical implications for each country on the deployment of attention and resources in terms of priorities.

3.4 National Development Priorities

In addition to the above-mentioned sub-regional frameworks, all countries have developed national development plans which highlight their individual national priorities. It is important to mention that many of the national development programs are short-term in nature even where they respond to medium-term national development strategies. In many cases, the annual program and priorities, if not the national development strategy itself, are changed each time a new government comes into power. It is important to highlight the disaggregated picture of the sub-regional priorities in terms of national development plans because it is this picture which guides member states on a daily basis. This is the basis upon which member states build institutions, mobilize resources, build capacities and develop partnerships with the international community. This is also the basis on which their people hold them accountable for delivery on commitments. Reporting, monitoring and evaluation should start from these and progress towards the sub-regional level. It is important to note that national development priorities vary from country to country. Where the priorities converge, it is more by coincidence than deliberate purpose. For example, South Africa’s core challenges are: mass joblessness,

PEOPLE ‐ PLANET ‐ PROSPERITY: A National Framework for Sustainable Development in South Africa, July 2008. Sustainable development is about enhancing human well-being and quality of life for all time, in particular those most affected by poverty and inequality. Resource use efficiency and intergenerational equity are the core principles. The purpose of the National Framework on Sustainable Development is to enunciate South Africa’s national vision for sustainable development and indicate strategic interventions to re-orientate South Africa’s development path in a more sustainable direction. It proposes a national vision, principles and areas for strategic intervention that will enable and guide the development of the national strategy and action plan. Priority areas for strategic intervention The identification of five priority areas for strategic intervention, and supporting priority recommendations, was based on the analysis of the natural resources, economic, social and governance trends. Theses priority areas or ‘pathways to sustainable development’ are: Enhancing systems for integrated planning and

implementation Sustaining our ecosystems and using natural

resources efficiently Economic development via investing in

sustainable infrastructure Creating sustainable human settlements Responding appropriately to emerging human

development, economic and environmental challenges

Making it happen Implementation calls for decision-making and action at various levels. The first is the identification of an existing institutional mechanism that can facilitate cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder coordination. Secondly we need an action plan to make sense of the directions contained in the five priority areas; then ongoing communication and consultation on achieving our national vision and strategy. Finally, strengthen appropriate monitoring, evaluation and reporting systems to determine success or failure and take appropriate action.


poverty and inequality. For Mauritius the priorities are: clustered growth, employment generation, housing, social development and infrastructure. The critical issues for Zambia are: economic and social development, infrastructure, human development, growth sectors, support sectors, regional development and the institutional arrangement for monitoring and evaluation. Zambia’s cross-cutting priorities are governance, HIV and AIDS, gender, disability, nutrition, environment and disaster risk management. For Malawi, the following are key priorities: agriculture and food security; irrigation and water development; infrastructure development; energy generation and supply; integrated rural development; and HIV and AIDS prevention and management. In Mozambique, where they are yet to launch an officially recognized medium-term national development strategy, their priorities are:14

(i) to increase output and productivity in the agriculture and fisheries sectors; (ii) to promote employment; and, (iii) to foster human and social development, while maintaining a joint focus on (iv)

governance and (v) macroeconomic affairs and fiscal management.

3.5 The Future We Want

The Future We Want is an outcome of the Rio+20 Initiative and running in parallel to the SDG formulation process. Several countries in the region, notably Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are participating in the ‘The Future We Want’ initiative that will inform the UN’s post-2015 development agenda. They have carried out extensive nation-wide consultations to assess national aspirations in terms of development priorities and some of them have reached the stage of discussing draft reports based on the exercise. It has not been possible to see many such reports in the timeframe of this study but a close look at one draft document available, that of Malawi, may already draw useful lessons of what to expect. Malawi’s current national development strategy, the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) 2, has nine priority areas and five thematic areas. The Future We Want has come up with 13 priority areas, but the nomenclature is not exactly the same and the table below represents an attempt to merge them so as to easily identify similarities and differences.

14 The first medium-term national development strategy has been drafted and planned for launching in July this year. These priorities are as stated in the National Annual Development plan


Table 6: Malawi's development priorities

No Malawi Growth and Development Strategy 2 The Future (Malawi) We Want Priority Areas

1 Agriculture and Food Security Agriculture development and food security

2 Energy, Industrial Development, Mining and Tourism

Private sector development

3 Transport Infrastructure and Nsanje World Inland Port

4 Education, Science and Technology Access to and quality of education; Science, technology and

communication 5 Public Health, Sanitation, Malaria and HIV and

AIDS Management Access to and quality of Health

Services; HIV and AIDS 6 Integrated Rural Development 7 Green Belt Irrigation and Water Development 8 Child Development, Youth Development and

Empowerment

9 Climate Change, Natural Resources and Environmental Management

Environment, Natural Resource Management

Thematic areas

1 Sustainable economic growth 2 Social development 3 Social protection and disaster risk management Special and vulnerable groups 4 Infrastructure Infrastructure development 5 Governance Governance and Accountability 6 Gender and capacity development Capacity development; Gender

equality and women empowerment Source: author based on MGDS 2 and the Draft ‘Malawi We Want’ The comparison of Malawi’s current development strategy and The Future (Malawi) We Want in Table 2 above shows some interesting lessons applicable to Malawi herself but some others reveal certain elements of principle on aspirations that may have broader application.15 There are both similarities and differences in terms of nomenclature, with the Malawi We Want having fewer priorities corresponding to the MGDS and its themes much more streamlined. This is a sign that Malawians want both a change and sharper focus in priorities. For example, education and health are retained as priorities, but they want issues of access and quality to come up front.16 It may not be of much value to read much in the themes and definitions of the areas of need: the most important lesson here is that the Malawi We Want has not identified anything substantially different from Malawi’s current development strategy, and that may be the case with many of the developing countries on this front. This then raises the prospect that the real issue is not in policy design or identification but implementation. The fact that the ‘Malawi We Want’ is mentioning fewer and more narrowly defined priorities may be the result of recognizing resource and capacity limitations in implementation.

15 This study offers no critique of the MGDS; it simply highlights the differences worth considering with the Future (Malawi) We Want 16 Issues of access and quality appear in the detail of MGDS, and as a result people feel that may be the reason not much progress is being made in these areas.


The Future We Want Initiative17 is still in its early stages but chances are high that it will bring up value in terms of refocusing the development agenda and not necessarily in bringing up new priorities. The implications on formulating the SDGs are that the priority development themes/areas will remain largely unchanged, and the SDGs developed will be easily applied or adapted to the context of the upcoming development agenda.

3.6 Setting regional sustainable development priorities

3.6.1 Regional and National Development Strategies/Frameworks The above-mentioned frameworks present a disaggregated picture of sub-regional priorities and trends. An analysis of the development strategies – regional and national - shows that the main priorities for the sub-region can be stated as follows:

i) Poverty eradication; ii) Reducing inequalities; iii) Food security and agriculture; iv) Climate change and its impacts; v) Access to water; vi) Adequate energy supply; vii) Investment for job creation; viii) Market access and trade; ix) Addressing the persistent debt burden; x) Improving levels of development funding; xi) Industrial diversification and value addition; xii) Combating HIV and AIDS; xiii) Gender equality and development; xiv) Science and technology; xv) Statistics; xvi) Resource mobilization; xvii) Institutional development; xviii) Addressing supply-side constraints related to infrastructure; and, xix) Peace and security.

There are 19 policy areas mentioned here but a closer look reveal strong linkages that offer the opportunity for reclassification into fewer categories. The terminology or classification is obviously difficult to regularize, for even areas of close consensus like that on poverty carries with it different emphasis: some put it poverty ‘reduction’ and some insist its poverty ‘eradication.’ Some separate ‘governance’ and ‘democracy’, some put it ‘democratic governance’. These semantic differences however should not stand in the way of efforts to redefine these areas in the context of sustainable development.

17 It has targeted 50 countries around the world.


The next sections take a detailed look at them in order to redefine them accordingly.

a) Poverty eradication Efforts to eradicate poverty would eventually resolve some of the economic challenges reported in the earlier chapter: high poverty, income inequality, limited value addition (minerals and agriculture), high unemployment, and limited economic diversification. Poverty eradication should take on board wholly or partially some of the policy themes identified above including reducing inequalities (ii), food security and agriculture (iii), improving levels of development funding (x), and resource mobilization (xvi). This re-grouping comes about because the eradication of poverty means that poorer people move up the income ladder, a movement that would automatically be reducing income inequalities. Such a movement would imply food security and adequate access to basic social services that require development funding and resource mobilization. All these items link up well to achieve the economic objectives of sustainable development and should be treated under the dimension of economic growth which is the sustainable driver of poverty reduction. In this connection, it would also include priorities (vi) to (vii): adequate energy supply; investment for job creation; market access and trade. Poverty eradication also has strong if not direct linkages to other areas as well, like that on science and technology, industrial diversification and trade.

b) Education and technical skills

Good education and technical skills remain important assets for access to more rewarding employment and business opportunities. Education refers to formal (primary, secondary, and tertiary) and non-formal schooling (adult and community education); access to and quality of education; and the effective use of educated people. Technical skills include those acquired through vocational training and skills upgrading. Education is expected to improve social wellbeing including health; contribute to reduced population growth; enhance governance and lead to a more entrepreneurial society. As pointed out in the previous chapter, enrolment rates for Southern Africa especially in higher education remain among the lowest in the world. The sub-region also faces high levels of brain drain on cadres like doctors, university lecturers, engineers, etc.). This theme on education and technical skills brings together issues of social inclusion (reducing inequalities (ii)), science and technology (xiv), statistics (xv), climate change and its impacts (iv).

c) Gender equality and empowerment

Social inclusion is generally understood to include fair and equitable access for all gender and vulnerable groups – men, women, young, elderly - to resources, employment, education, and health services; participation in all aspects of community life; enjoyment and the exercise of basic human freedoms; and fair and equitable access to livelihoods and justice. Defined in this way, it is clear that gender equality and empowerment is a cross-cutting theme and in its expanded form (hence the name social inclusion) also takes on board issues of


intergenerational equity and vulnerabilities. In Southern Africa, the place of women and youth both as the drivers and beneficiaries of sustainable development is significant. There has been commendable progress in many areas, including education, health, HIV/AIDS, employment and participation in political and decision-making processes; but challenges are still outstanding in the form of marginalization and exclusion from benefits of economic growth in recent years.

d) Health and nutrition

Health and nutrition takes on board the challenges of combating HIV and AIDS, and combating communicable and non-communicable diseases which often come as a result of poor nutrition. Health means a state of complete physical and mental well-being: "human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature” (UNEP 1992). Health is both a means for and an end of development. Southern Africa faces tremendous challenges on the health front as shown on life expectancy and HIV/AIDS indicators in the previous chapter. The health theme has strong linkages improving levels of development funding (x) and resource mobilization (xvi) because many developing countries do not have the resources to build modern hospitals. A healthy population is the key to improved economic production as labour availability can be maximized. Southern Africa has a high HIV prevalence rate of around 12.6 percent and most of this affects the economically productive age group of between 20 and 49 years of age. The Region also has high incidence communicable diseases like malaria. The diet of a large component of the Region’s population is not diversified despite the prevalence of alternative foods. Improving the health well-being of its population remain an important objective for this Region

e) Environmental Sustainability

Southern Africa faces grave challenges on the environment as reported in Section 2.3.3: extensive loss of forests and its related environmental impacts; deteriorating biodiversity and quality of the ecosystems as a result of climatic factors; narrowly focused economic and sectoral policies that do not prioritise environmental conservation. Biological diversity has been a defining feature of Southern Africa’s history, culture, economic and social organization. However, corporate greed combined with high population growth and policy failures have significantly altered traditional forest management practices and the rural socioeconomic fabric. As a result forest reserves are very much endangered areas in the sub-region. The dependence on natural resources is relatively high, against the backdrop of pervasive poverty and low technological and institutional response.

The agriculture sector is sensitive to climate change and variability and combined with poor soil fertility, pests, crop diseases, and lack of access to technology, markets, and infrastructure, climate change and its variability is having a huge impact on Southern Africa’s livelihood base. Seasons of good rainfall are associated with plenty while dry seasons are associated with adversities,


deprivation, frustration, famine, and possible displacement. The sub-region is facing increased frequency of severe drought and dry spells, flooding, changes in rainfall patterns, increasing temperatures, and the like coming as a result of climate change. Fossil-fuel carbon emissions are relatively low but the carbon intensity of Southern Africa is rather high. There is need to reduce carbon intensity and facilitate a transition to a low-carbon economy.

f) Governance

The governance theme would help the sub-region to address the challenges it is facing on governance in the areas of institutional development; peace and security; public sector management; and, resource mobilization. Governance is the overarching dimension of sustainable development and impacts economic, social, and environmental well-being across space and generations. Institutional governance cuts across all three dimensions of SD and it involves state capacity to articulate societal needs and respond to it, implement policies and establish new institutions for sustainable natural resource use, negotiate bilateral economic and trade agreements. An important dimension of governance in Southern Africa is the authority exercised by traditional institutions, starting at the family level, which play effective roles in common property arrangement, use, and conflict management. The authority of a state rests on legislation and its enforcement, but traditional institutions have the moral authority and culture behind them. Thus, the respect for and effective use of traditional resource management and conflict resolution mechanisms is an important aspect of good governance.

Peace and security are important factors for sustainable development. Armed conflict is on the wane in Southern African countries, except in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, intrastate conflicts and tensions remain. These are often related to the process of managing competition over limited economic opportunities and scarce natural resources, notably agricultural land, pasture, and water. For example, farm land in Zimbabwe; water (notably including trans-boundary water resources); minerals, including diamonds, gold, and oil (as in Angola, and DRC); and natural disasters have displaced people and generated conflicts in the Greater Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and Southern Africa.

The discussion on content and inter-linkages between priority policy intervention areas for Southern Africa has led us to identify 6 major themes for sustainable development: poverty eradication; education and technical skills; health and nutrition; gender equality and development; environmental sustainability, and governance. These are summed up in Table 7 below.


Table 7: Sustainable development prioritization

SD Theme Sub-themes and content Poverty eradication Reducing inequalities; food security and agriculture; adequate

energy supply; regional integration; investment for job creation; market access and trade; addressing the persistent debt burden; improving levels of development funding; and, industrial diversification and value addition.

Education and technical skills Access to and quality of education; and the effective use of educated people; school enrolment especially beyond primary level; reduced population growth; enhance governance and lead to a more entrepreneurial society; science and technology; statistics, monitoring and evaluation

Gender equality and empowerment Fair and equitable access for all gender groups (men, women, young, elderly) i.e. to resources, employment, education, and health services; social inclusion of all disadvantaged groups; `participation in all aspects of community life; enjoyment and the exercise of basic human freedoms; and fair and equitable access to livelihoods and justice

Health and nutrition Combating HIV and AIDS; combating communicable and non-communicable diseases; diet diversification and nutrition education; access to water and sanitation; improving levels of development funding; and resource mobilization

Environmental sustainability Climate change vulnerability and adaptation; access to water and improved sanitation; reducing and reversing forest loss; and, preserving ecosystems and biodiversity

Governance Institutional development; peace and security; public sector management; resource mobilization; enjoyment and the exercise of basic human freedoms.

Source: authors It can be noted in Table 7 that some sub-themes can belong to more than one thematic area, i.e. they are cross-cutting. Some main themes themselves, like gender equality and empowerment and governance, can also be cross-cutting. This means that all classifications of themes or sub-themes can hardly achieve definitional precision. It is a challenge to achieve a proper balance between promulgating broad policy themes that may compromise clarity in focus and specific policy sub-themes that can end up being too numerous to be managed within a high level policy document. A trade-off also exists between achieving technical correctness and parsimony that makes things easy to be understood by non-technical people. The identification of gaps in policy pronouncements at the national and regional level in relation to sustainable development suffers from these constraints and can hardly be perfected.18 In relation to the issues on sustainable development identified in the previous chapter, it would appear that most of them are captured in existing national and regional strategic plans but the difference arise in prioritisation. National development strategies are nearly unanimous in prioritising poverty reduction/eradication, but after that there is not much commonality in ranking despite continued similarity over policy issues of focus. Regional development 18It is possible, for example, that there are more specific policy statements on the environment theme in national development strategies of some countries in the region so that in a sense what has been identified as a ‘gap’ is only so based on the limited information accessed by the author.


strategies carry different prioritisations more suited to the mandates for which they were established. They seem to take on other development issues as additional issues that have closer linkages to the delivery of their core mandate.


Chapter 4: Sustainable Development Goals, Targets and Indicators Sustainable development goals, targets, and indicators must be in line with sustainable development themes identified in the previous chapter in order for them to have ownership by the implementing countries. Targets must be appropriate to the goals; and indicators must be appropriate to the targets. The overall goal of sustainable development is to achieve improved human wellbeing without compromising that of future generations. Goals have to be derived from this overall goal: they can be short term or long term, higher level and lower level, in all the areas of sustainable development.

Source: adapted from The Lancet Commissions, Sept 2010. www.thelancet.com.19 This conceptualization framework will guide the formulation of sustainable development goals being put forward in this study.

4.1 Guiding Principles

In order to develop meaningful sustainable development goals, targets and indicators certain guiding principles have to be followed. The Rio+20 Outcome document mentions some five principles for SDGs and these are that they should be:

19 The difference being that we prefer to use ‘economic development’ instead of ‘human development’, as human development may already have connotations of ‘social development’ which already appears on its own. Others would argue that ‘economic’ is part of ‘social’, clearly showing that this illustration is not cast in stone. The double arrows for ‘Wellbeing’ indicate that it is the result of the horizontal interaction of ‘economic, social and environmental development.

Wellbeing

Economic development (change in individual human income and wealth)

Social development (change in social relations and resources

Environmental development (change in access to and relations)

GOVERNANCE

Figure 3: Illustration of overall sustainable development goals


i) action-oriented; ii) concise and easy to communicate; iii) limited in number; iv) aspirational; and, v) global in nature and universally applicable to all countries while taking into

account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities.

Most of these principles are self-explanatory; but the last one reveals the depth of the challenge to come with proper and widely accepted SDGs. Further discussions and literature coming as follow up to Rio+20 show that that there is need for SDGs to build upon and be guided by the Millennium Declaration, Agenda 21, and the JPOI; and that they should be consistent with other internationally agreed goals and targets. Specifically, there is need for SDGs to complement or link up to MDGs by building up on their success and learning from their failures.20 Some of the key features that have made the MDGs successful are the following:

• High level global political buy in: controversial goals and/or targets were

conveniently or deliberately left out, like those on peace and security, human rights, or CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions.

• Parsimony: anyone with reasonable interest can easily remember an MDG if not several of them.

• Providing measurable outcomes: they have quantitative targets and some precise indicators. This makes management easy as the numbers keep coming.

• Neutrality from policy prescriptions: each country is free to design policies that can be successful in achieving the MDGs within their situational context

To ensure the success of SDGs, some of these features have to be retained. But SDGs will need to avoid the pitfalls faced by MDGs and the key ones are stated below:

• Confusion between ‘high level’ and ‘lower level goals’ Whether by design or implicitly, the eight MDGs are always treated at the same level but some appear to be higher level goals than others. Environmental Sustainability (Goal 7) covers an entire sector but not Maternal Health (Goal 5) or Reduce child mortality (Goal 4) which belong to one sector. Failure to design goals at the same level would result in comparing apples to oranges, and may lead to misleading resource allocations and assessments of achievements.

• Fragmentation and lack of synergy

The major weakness of the MDGs has been their fragmentation and lack of synergy, and perhaps any goal setting endeavor with the current level of human knowledge may not avoid this completely. Goal setting cannot easily avoid the evil of creating isolated vertical organization of administrative and operational

20 United Nations General Assembly: Sixty-seventh session. Secretary-General’s Initial Input to the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals.


functions that will not relate easily to other areas. Literature shows that the health sector, with three MDGs – Goal 4, 5, and 6, may not have reaped the benefits of consolidation or proper coordination.

• Partiality

The targets or indicators chosen do not in many instances present a holistic picture of the goal or target. For example, the number of seats for women in Parliament can easily be achieved through affirmative action, as some countries have done, while on the overall goal of gender development they rank very low.21 This can also promote the spirit of the ‘end justifies the means’, with tragic consequences on long term development.

• Lack of ownership/commitment

There are still some goals, many targets, and especially indicators that go unreported by some countries due to lack of ownership or commitment. This especially goes for the goal on gender equity and women empowerment, perhaps indicating that its preconditions for its inclusion are not yet met or agreed universally.

To sum up, in addition to the guiding principles, the global experience from implementing MDGs provides useful lessons for coming up with SDGs that are universally applicable.

4.2 SDGs, targets and indicators

As pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, SDGs should cascade downwards from the ultimate goal of human well being, and reflect distinct dimensions of human wellbeing coming as an outcome of sustainable development. Using the priority themes for Southern Africa developed in the previous chapter, it is proposed that the following goals, targets and indicators should be considered in the formulation of global SDGs. First of all, Table 8 shows the goal for each theme and Table 9 shows the targets and indicators for each goal.

21 An African country, Rwanda, ranks 1st in the world on the number seats occupied by women in Parliament; but ranks 76 on gender development.


Table 8: SD Themes and goals

SD Theme Goal (by 2045) Goal short name Poverty eradication All countries should by 2045 achieve economic

growth with equity by improving pro-poor investment and financing into basic infrastructure, employment generation; through appropriate market incentives, adequate access to land, and adoption of best technologies for sustainable food production

Sustainable poverty eradication

Education and technical skills

By 2045, nations should have expanded coverage and improved quality of education and its access; including adult education, technical (vocational) skills training

Improve learning (education and technical) attainment

Gender equality and empowerment

Promotion of the capabilities of all individuals to reach their full potential irrespective of class, gender, ethnic origin, religion, or race, with special attention to women, youth, and elderly people, by addressing the vulnerabilities of each group

Promote gender equality and empowerment

Health and nutrition Adequate access to primary health services, safe and sustainable water and sanitation, adequate nutrition, and basic infrastructure, including electricity, roads, and connectivity to the global information network.

Improved health and nutrition status

Environmental sustainability

Countries should adopt low-carbon energy systems, sustainable food systems, sustainable urban areas (including resilience in the face of growing hazards from climate change), and stabilisation of the world’s population through voluntary choices

Sustainable environment management

Governance Governments should be fully committed to cooperation on development; the rule of law, human rights, transparency, democratic participation, inclusion, and sound economic institutions that support the private and civil society sectors in a productive manner.

Improved governance

Source: authors Two things are worth explaining in Table 8: the 2045 goal deadline and the goal short name. The 2045 deadline has been chosen because of the need for intergenerational equity in the implementation of SDGs. A generation is often understood as an age group or age band, often covering a number of years. The commonly used parent-child generation can have a minimum of around 15 years and 30 years (2015 – 2045) would cover two generations. The other commonly used is a decade and in this context 30 years would cover 3 generations. Intergenerational equity will require some comparisons across at least two generations and that is why 2045 has been chosen. From these arguments, the realistic minimum duration for SDGs may be no less than 20 years. The other thing to explain is the goal’s short name. The MDGs have become easy to use partly because of their short name nomenclature and it may be useful to retain that aspect. However, it


should be realized that brevity can sacrifice useful detail for issues that cannot be easily communicated in a few words. Table 9: SDGs, Targets and Indicators

GOAL TARGETS INDICATORS

Sustainable poverty eradication

Equitable economic growth GDP per capita Net trade exports/GDP (%) Poverty Gap Ratio (%) Adjusted Net Savings (ANS) Poorest quintile share in consumption (%) Proportion of urban population living in slums (%) Average arable land holdings

Eradicate extreme (ultra-poor) poverty

Poverty headcount (%)

Unemployment rate (%) Development funding into free services (% of budget)

Proportion of people who are food secure

Prevalence of Underweight Children (%) Food aid dependent population (%)

Improve learning (education and technical) attainment

Achieve universal primary education

Net Enrolment in Primary (%) Proportion of Pupils Starting Grade1 Reaching Grade 5 (%) Literacy Rate (15-24yrs) (%) Quality of primary education (satisfaction levels)

Proportion of higher skills people Secondary and tertiary schooling attainment level Quality of University education (perceptions) Net enrolment in technical education

Promote gender equality and empowerment

Equitable enrolment in formal and non-formal education

Ratio of Girls to boys in Primary Education Ratio of Girls to Boys in Secondary Education Ratio of Literate Women to Men 15 – 24 Years Old

Equal distribution of wealth, participation in decision making, promote basic human rights security amongst gender

Share of Women in decent Wage Employment Sector (%) Proportion of Seats Held by Women in Parliament (%) Gender Based Violence levels (%)22

Improve health and nutrition status

Improved primary health care

Under-five mortality rate (per 1,000) Infant Mortality rate (per 1,000) Proportion of 1 year children immunized against measles (%) Life expectancy at birth

Improve Maternal Health Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000) Proportion of births attended to by skilled health personnel (%)

Combat HIV and AIDS, Malaria and other diseases

HIV prevalence among 15 – 24 year old pregnant women (%) Ratio of orphans to non-orphans in school

22 For example, Malawi DHS 2010 has a module on perceptions of women empowerment in families. Perception indicators can be extended to other areas like environment where measurements are difficult.


GOAL TARGETS INDICATORS

Deaths rates associated with Malaria (%) Access to Malaria Treatment (%) Proportion of Household with at least one ITN (%) Death rates associated with Tuberculosis (%) Proportion of TB Cases under DOTS (%)

Improved nutrition status Prevalence of underweight children Dietary diversity index

Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Reverse unsustainable use of environmental and natural resources

Proportion of land covered by forest (%) Proportion of area protected to maintain biological diversity (%) Proportion with access to renewable energy Proportion of budget/GDP on environment

Reduce the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation

Proportion of population with sustainable access to an improved water source (%) Proportion of population with access to improved sanitation (%)

Reduce internal migration to cities

Slum population as percentage of urban population (%)

Reduce ozone harming emissions Carbon dioxide emissions Carbon intensity Urban air pollution

Improved governance

Improve accountability Net ODA as a percentage of Real GDP (%) Corruption rankings

Improve public sector service delivery

Service delivery scorecards Number of national resource endowment funds and regulatory bodies

Encourage open flow of information

Telephone lines subscribers per 100 population(%) Cellular subscribers per 100 population (%) Internet users per 1,000 population (%)

Enforce rule of law Personal security satisfaction Corruption perceptions/ranking

Table 9 has provided the goals, targets and indicators on sustainable development. There are six SDGs with their targets and indicators. The overriding criteria in choosing indicators that are measurable and are relevance in the context of the identified goals.23 The SDGs are also more parsimonious than MDGs despite being more rigorous in terms of measurements. The SDGs, therefore, offer better potential to encourage broader ownership and commitment from many stakeholders. The demands on monitoring and evaluation will be much higher for SDGs than many other known goals on development but that is a practical challenge that can be easier to overcome than achieving higher level consensus for ownership of these goals.

In connection with the goal setting conceptual framework at the beginning of this chapter and the dimensions of sustainable development, these goals can be summed up in this way:

23 It is not possible to ascertain ‘measurability’ for ALL countries because of differences in data collection capacities.


Table 10: SD dimensions and goals

SD Dimension Goals Economic dimension Sustainable poverty eradication. Social dimension Improve learning outcomes;

Promote gender equality and empowerment Improve health and nutrition status.

Environment Ensure environmental sustainability. Governance Improved governance.

Table 10 shows that all SD dimensions have one goal except the social dimension. The fact that the social dimension has three goals does not necessarily mean unequal treatment of the dimensions but simply a sign that perhaps in the foreseeable future there are more human wellbeing issues to consider under the social dimension.

4.3 Implementing SDGs

4.3.1 Monitoring and Evaluation There is already a system of monitoring MDGs at the global level, beginning with country assessments at an annual basis, and ending up with high level plenary reports at the regional and global level. There have not been many comments to change this arrangement, except perhaps to say that there is need for more country ownership in terms of initiating and funding the process. The only feasible change put forward is that the frequency should be no less than two years.24 There is merit in avoiding annual assessments as many of the comprehensive statistical surveys that provide data are held either once in three or five years. SDGs will need data that are accurate, timely, and readily available to managers, policy makers, and the public. In many Southern Africa countries, data availability is a problem and where available data are often years out of date. Despite huge differences in income between the Region’s countries, both higher income and lower income countries share similar problems on data availability. One can hardly find published information from the past one year for many of the member countries. Despite the advent of the mobile phone, wireless broadband, and remote sensing, data are still mostly obtained by hand in household surveys. Governments should consciously invest in a real-time reporting system for the SDGs to produce regular and reliable data on a yearly basis where possible.

4.3.2 Usage of SDGs

Many country respondents believe that the primary use of SDGs should be to inform their country’s budget. In other words, more resources should be allocated to SDGs that are not showing good progress. The second use has is helping to balance economic, social and

24 Only one country, South Africa, suggested that they should be held annually. The convergence (57 %) is on every three years. Understandably, South Africa has one of the strongest statistical data systems in Africa.


environmental pillars in policy making. The use of SDGs for defining national policy priorities, reviewing the impact of national policies, addressing key pressure leading to unsustainable development, and guiding development cooperation receive little or no mention.

4.3.3 Setting Targets for SDG indicators

There is broad agreement on this matter: targets should be common but differentiated in targets for indicators depending on country characteristics and level of development. This means that targets for the global can be set, just like for the MDGs, but targets for each country should be different based on their baselines. However, in the politics of target setting, there are some risks that countries if allowed to set their own indicators they may set easy ones. To avoid this, a global target should be set first for an indicator, and then given the global baseline, a country’s target can be set taking into account the similar magnitude of movement from the global baseline to the global target. Any other better methods are bound to be more complicated and difficult to implement. There should be a global and regional database keeping track of these targets and advising individual countries of their position.

4.3.4 SDG Challenges

There is unanimity on the ‘finances’ challenge, both for implementation and monitoring and evaluation. It is believed that resources have to be mobilised more aggressively than before to fund actual investments for sustainable development, and also for monitoring and evaluation as data collection systems are still heavily donor dependent in many countries. The second challenge is on technical skills: capacity building will be required in terms of training on defining indicators and collection of data. So while the SDGs may be fewer than MDGs, the requirements on monitoring and evaluation will be much higher because of investments needed to collect reliable and clearly defined data for the comprehensive range of indicators. On financing, it should be accepted that SDGs will require all countries to invest adequately in their success. All countries must accept to set aside some proportion of current consumption to invest into the only long term viable path for human destiny. Countries could bind themselves to transparent and specific standards of financing related to national incomes, revenue from exploitation of natural resources, and levies on national greenhouse gas emissions. Where there are legitimate shortfalls, there may be need for further funding support from high income to low income countries, notably the foreign aid outlays voted by Parliaments of high income countries that were set at 0·7 percent of their gross domestic product. Such foreign aid may be best followed up at the bilateral level given the failure at the international level to honour financial pledges. On capacity building, there is need to continuously review and build local capacities in data collection and analysis. The continuous development and refinement of indicators, their effective use, and indeed the effective integration of all dimensions of sustainable development, depend upon the commitment and capacity of people on the ground. Involvement of experts, policy makers, civil society groups and beneficiaries will help achieve national ownership of indicators, a sine quo non for their institutionalization and instilling collective responsibility for monitoring of progress toward sustainable development. It is of primary importance to strengthen and


develop capacity of the national statistical systems and their lead institutional offices, and also broaden the scope to include those involved in policy making, program planning, and monitoring and evaluation at various levels: human resources, institutions, policy and legislation. A capacity building program on monitoring and evaluation needs to be developed at the Regional level, lead by an institution like ECA or AU, and this can be streamlined into national plans.

4.3.5 Defining indicators

As will be noticed for some goals, especially the new one on governance, perhaps the indicators may not be exhaustive. To a large extent, it is beyond the scope of this study to design new indicators.25 There were also limitations on the side of key informants: this study had to cope with informants that were willing to provide required information even in fields that were not of their primary competence. The challenge to complete the set of indicators can be handled by institutional expertise in the relevant areas, perhaps through internal or intra-office consultations by global, continental and regional institutions like ADB, UNECA, AU, SADC, and the like, with the help of some limited external expertise where need be.

25 As pointed out earlier on, only indicators that were seen as being measurable and relevant have been taken on board. Some of the trade-off challenges amongst indicators are outstanding: using many indicators for one goal can offer a more comprehensive assessment, but it would have huge implications for nascent M&E systems in many countries.


Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations This study set out to identify sustainable development goals for Southern Africa that would help to prepare Southern African countries to effectively engage in the global SDG process. It has managed to achieve this by conducting extensive literature review, key informant interviews and collecting data through a questionnaire. The two main limitations of the study were difficulties to find key informants comprehensively informed and equipped on the major aspects of sustainable development, and finding easily comparable information from member states and regional bodies. As a consequence, while priority SDG issues and themes have been identified, it has not been possible to rank them. One of the findings of the study is that Southern Africa has done much better than the entire Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of human development over the last twenty years, even though both Southern and Sub-Saharan Africa have been outpaced by South Asia. The average picture for Southern Africa masks wide differences in individual country performance, as she hosts both the highest HDI ranked country in Africa and some of the lowest ranked. On the negative side, improvements in HDI for the region have been associated with extensive environmental degradation in the form of forest and natural resources loss.

The study has also identified some key issues affecting the sub-region such as, on the economic front, high poverty; income inequality; limited value addition (minerals and agriculture); high unemployment; and limited diversification. On the social front, high incidence of disease probably related to or being worsened by HIV and AIDs; poor health service delivery; and, enrolment in education beyond primary school. On the environmental front, extensive loss of forests and its related environmental impacts, deteriorating biodiversity and quality of the ecosystems; and narrowly focused economic and sectoral policies that do not prioritise environmental conservation. Finally, on governance, poor funding and weak capacity of institutions involved in service delivery, especially those involved in environmental management and mainstreaming sectors; poor public sector and rural sector management; prevalence of fragmentation, overlap, duplication and competition between institutions.

Given the issues facing the region, the following six priority themes have been identified for sustainable development: poverty eradication; education and technical skills; gender equality and empowerment; health and nutrition; environmental sustainability; and governance. As a consequence, and based the Millennium Declaration, Agenda 21, the Rio Principles, and the JPOI, the study has come up with six SDGs, namely,

i) sustainable poverty eradication; ii) improved learning (education and technical) attainment; iii) promote gender equality and empowerment; iv) improved health and nutrition status; v) ensure environmental sustainability; and, vi) improved governance .


The overall design of SDGs has been based on unified concept of the ultimate goals of human development, which is improved human wellbeing. Some of the major strengths of MDGs that led to their high level global acceptance, like parsimony, measured outcomes, have been retained. The main recommendations of this study have come in connection with the implementation of the SDGs and these are:

vii) The system of monitoring MDGs at the global level, beginning with country assessments at an annual basis, and ending up with high level plenary reports at the regional and global level should be maintained. However, the proposal is that they should take place either once in two or three years. For this to succeed, governments should consciously invest in a real-time reporting system for the SDGs to produce regular and reliable data on a yearly basis where possible by taking advantage of the advent of the mobile phone, wireless broadband, and remote sensing. A program of action to produce regular and reliable data, led and designed at the regional level by UN or AU bodies, and streamlined at national level, could assist.

viii) There is need to make use of SDGs in the formulating national budgets and in

helping to balance economic, social and environmental pillars in policy making. Advocacy by UN agencies through Ministers of Finance and Parliaments is crucial for this to be attained.

ix) Targets should be common but differentiated in targets for indicators depending

on country characteristics and level of development. This means that targets for the global level can be set just like it was done for the MDGs, but targets for each country should be different and based on their baselines. This effort can be technically led by UN Regional bodies and streamlined for the benefit of individual countries. Left to themselves, countries may set up easily achievable targets; but left to externals, unrealistic targets may be set. There is need for an independent forum – perhaps a review council or commission of government and non-government representatives at regional level - to set agreeable and realistic indicator targets for each country.

x) There is need to mobilize more resources to finance implementation and

monitoring and evaluation of the SGDs. Individual country commitments on finance should be a priority, seconded by ODA where it is forthcoming. There is need for a regional fund to be established in this connection that could be accessed by regional and specific country initiatives for purposes of promoting data collection and analysis of SDGs. UNECA can take the lead for exploring arrangements for such a fund, with support from other regional institutions.

xi) The second pressing need is on technical skills: capacity building will be required

in terms of training on defining indicators and collection of data. The continuous development and refinement of indicators, their effective use, and indeed the


effective integration of all dimensions of sustainable development, depend upon the commitment and capacity of people on the ground. A capacity building program on monitoring and evaluation needs to be developed at the Regional level, lead by an institution like ECA or AU, and this can be streamlined into plans at the national level.

xii) There is need for continuous review of indicators and some targets and this can be

handled by institutional expertise in the relevant areas, perhaps through internal or intra-office consultations, across regional and national institutions, with limited external assistance. As will be noticed for some goals, especially the new one on governance, not many of the suggested indicators are being collected currently. Training on how to collect data for new indicators in each country context will be vital and needs to be carried early before time for reporting.


REFERENCES African Development Bank (2010). The African Development Bank and energy: Meeting the challenge of Energy Access for all Africans. Cline WR (2007). Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact estimates by country. Centre for Development , Peterson Institute for International Economic. 2007. COMESA (2010). Medium-term Strategic Plan: Towards an Integrated and Competitive Common Market 2011 – 2015. Lusaka: Zambia. www.comesa.int Hailu, D., and R. Tsukada (2011). Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: A Measure of Progress. Working Paper 78. Brasilia: International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth. Lesolle, D (2012). SADC issue paper on climate change: Assessing the policy options for SADC member states. Mo Ibrahim Foundation (2012). 2012 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. Swindon: England. Malawi Government (2006). The Malawi Growth and Development Strategy 2011-16. Lilongwe. Malawi Government and UNDP (2013). The Malawi We Want (draft unpublished). Lilongwe. Merven, B, Hughes, A and Davis, S (2010). An analysis of energy consumption for a selection of countries in the Southern African Development Community, Journal of Energy in Southern Africa , Vol 21 No 1, February 2010. Moss, T. (2010). What Next for the Millennium Development Goals? Global Policy Vol.1, No. 2, pp. 218–220. Mozambique Government (2004). Plano Estratégico do Sector do Ambiente (2005-2015): Documento Final. Maputo. NEPAD, (2012). Review of the implementation of the action plan of the AU/NEPAD Environment initiative, Final draft report. Nyarko, Yaw (2011). Rethinking the MDGs: Towards an Alternative Development Agenda post- 2015. Accra: Ghana. Sachs, Jeffrey (2012). From Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals. New York. SADC (2003). Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP). Gaberone: Botswana. www.sadc.int


South Africa Government (2011). National Strategy And Action Plan For Sustainable Development 2011-14. Pretoria. United Nations (2007). Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies. 3rd ed. New York.

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UNECA (2008). Sustainable Development Report on Africa: Managing Land-Based Resources for Sustainable Development, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

UNECA (2012). Progress Towards Sustainable Development in Africa, Addis Ababa.

……………… Progress Towards Sustainable Development in Africa in Southern Africa. Addis Ababa.

………………. Sustainable Development Indicators Framework For Africa And Initial Compendium Of Indicators (Draft Version). Addis Ababa.

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Vandemoortele, Jan (2009). Taking the MDGs beyond 2015: Hasten Slowly. Brussels.


Annex 1: Semi-structured Questionnaire Development of Sustainable Development Goals Southern Africa Region April, 2013 This questionnaire serves as a broad guide for country discussions with key informants to appreciate the understanding on the idea of sustainable development and how its implementation can be assessed at country level. Introduction At the global level, the millennium development agenda is coming to an end in two years time (2015) and consolidating upon its success and improving on its weaknesses, at the global and country levels, there is need to develop a new and more inclusive development agenda. It has been broadly agreed to focus on sustainable development construed as distinct from and much more encompassing than economic development. Three clearly interlinked pillars have been identified in sustainable development – economic growth, social well-belong and environmental protection – with a fourth one on governance overarching these three pillars. The millennium agenda had the millennium development goals as a means for measuring implementation and consolidating results at the global level and the challenge is to come with a similar arrangement for sustainable development by developing ‘sustainable development goals’ (SDGs). It has been agreed broadly that SDGs must be based on Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation; fully respect all the Rio+20 Principles; be consistent with international law; build upon commitments already made; contribute to the full implementation of the outcomes of all major summits in the economic, social and environmental fields; focus on priority areas for the achievement of sustainable development; address and incorporate in a balanced way all three dimensions of sustainable development and their inter-linkages; be coherent with and integrated into the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015; not divert focus or effort from the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In terms of actual content or ‘physical outlook’, it has been further agreed that SDGs must be action-oriented, concise, easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, and global in nature. They will have universal application while taking into account different national contexts, capacities and levels of development, and respecting national policies and priorities. KEY QUESTIONS 1. Please list the important development/thematic areas in the country’s national

development strategy or its equivalent that address/will address sustainable development – economic growth, social well-being, environmental protection and governance.

2. Please list the indicators used to measure progress in those areas? Are they easily available and or collected?


3. How can SDGs be structured to balance the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development?

Reflect social, economic and environmental dimensions within each SDG,

possibly through the associated targets Integrate the MDGs, suitably modified/updated for post-2015, into a larger

sustainable development framework Expand MDG7 (‘environmental sustainability’) into a number of goals with a

natural/environmental resource dimension (water, food, energy, etc.) Other (please describe)

4. Based on your experience with the use of MDGs or other existing goals, what would be

the key use of SDGs for your country (select at most two)?

(i) Defining national policy priorities (ii) Influencing national budget allocations (iii) Reviewing the impact of national policies (iv) Addressing key pressure leading to unsustainable development (v) Helping to balance economic, social and environmental pillars in policy making (vi) Guiding development cooperation (vii) Other

5. The SDGs are supposed to be “global in nature”. Should targets associated with those goals be:

(i) common to all countries? (ii) defined by each country? or (iii) common but differentiated depending on country characteristics and level of

development? If c., please explain how.

6. Which existing MDG goals and targets can be incorporated – perhaps in updated form – in a proposal for sustainable development goals?

7. How should assessments of progress toward the achievement of the SDGs be carried out at the global level?


8. What principles should underpin the choice of appropriate SDGs? (e.g. reducing inequalities? promoting human rights? ensuring sustainability?)

9. What would be the implementation challenges and constraints and how can these be addressed?

10. What challenges exist in ensuring the linkages between the economic, social and environment dimensions of sustainable development?

11. Do you have any other observations, ideas or inputs you would like to offer to inform the initial work of the open working group on sustainable development goals?

Annex 2: List of Contacts

Country Name Position Contact

Botswana Ms. Tebaso L. Chalashika Economist – Ministry of Finance

[email protected]

Mr. Disikalela Gaseitsiwe Deputy Secretary (Socio-Economic Policy)

[email protected]

Malawi Dr. Yanira Mseka Ntupanyama Principal Secretary - Environmental Affairs

E-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Jollam Banda Chief Economist – Economic Planning and Development


Mr. Frank Kamanga Chief Economist - Ministry of Environment

Email: [email protected]

Mr. Frank Kamanga Chief Economist - Ministry of Environment


Dr Gebrehiwot Kebedew Country Economist – UNDP Malawi


Mauritius Mrs. Priya Durshini Thaunoo Chadee

Environment Officer E-mail: [email protected]

Mozambique Mr. Marcos Sapateiro SDGs National Focal Point


South Africa Ms. Elise Haber Director - Environment, Science and Technology


Mr. Tlou Ramaru Senior Policy Advisor - Environmental Affairs


Mr. Rhulani Baloyi Policy Analyst - Environmental Affairs


Namibia Mr. David Katjaimo Chief Labor Relations E-mail: [email protected] Swaziland Mr. Patrick Vusi Mnisi Senior Economist -

Economic Planning and E-mail: [email protected]


Development Tanzania Mr. Jordan Charles Matonya Policy Analyst,

Planning Commission E-mail: [email protected]

Zambia Mr. Chinyanta Chikula Principal Labor Officer Email: [email protected]

COMESA Dr G. Kanyangara Climate Change Advisor [email protected] SADC Mr Alex Banda Senior Programme

Officer, Environment and Sustainable Development

[email protected] [email protected]

NEPAD Ms. Rosalie Lo Head, Gender Unit, NEPAD

[email protected]

Prof. Mosad Elmissiry Head, Energy Unit, NEPAD

[email protected]

Mr Vincent Oparah Environment Section, NEPAD

[email protected]

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