By Charles W. Corey
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Regional flood control and disaster preparedness will be high on the agenda of the U.S.-SADC Forum, which will be held in Maputo, Mozambique, May 10-11, says Verne Newton, a ranking official with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
In a May 5 interview with the Washington File, Newton, deputy assistant administrator for Africa, said one of the major issues that USAID will pursue at the U.S.-SADC (Southern African Development Community) Forum is a regional approach to disaster preparedness.
Focusing on the recent flooding in Mozambique, Newton recalled that "a lot of what they were hit with stemmed from flood control and land policies in all of the neighboring states. The Zambezi, the Limpopo, and Save Rivers all flow from other countries into Mozambique, and so it was not an entirely homemade disaster by any means.
"We believe that SADC will agree with us that we need to do much more for disaster preparedness for the whole region," he said.
Newton added that USAID and the 60-member U.S. delegation -- to be led by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott -- will discuss a broad range of issues at the forum. They will include, he said, regional trade; economic and stability issues, such as how SADC works as a stabilizing force within areas of security; and the very important issue of HIV/AIDS.
USAID, Newton continued, is currently funding $20 million in regional SADC assistance funds. Its four primary target sectors are economic growth and regional market integration; democracy and governance; agriculture development of drought-resistant crops; and regional natural resource management, with a concentration on water resources and wildlife. Total USAID assistance to the 14-nation SADC region exceeds $200 million, Newton said.
Regarding the region's long-term economic potential, Newton said: "When you start with South Africa as the largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, and you have Zimbabwe -- which up until recently had been one of the major reformers -- [and] Mozambique the fastest-growing economy in the world prior to the flood, and a very strong performer in Botswana, you have economic potential and very solid and extensive middle-class professionals that are helping to drive those economies. You also have mineral wealth [and] agricultural potential beyond anything that has been realized. So you have a good consumer market both for exporters and for direct foreign investment."
One of the discouraging factors in the past, he said, has been that no one country has been large enough to justify a major investment by most major multinational companies. But taken together the region has the "the required impact as a market ... as both an importer and exporter, as a consumer market, and a highly skilled labor force. It's got all of those potentials."
USAID has been heavily involved in promoting unified trade "between and among" the SADC countries, the United States, and Europe, he said. "There are all kinds of stories that hopefully are fading into history about the difficulties of transporting goods between borders and how long trucks get held up at borders. ... This has been very stifling" to the free flow of goods.
USAID, like all other U.S. federal agencies, he said, also has been pushing for the adoption and implementation of the SADC trade protocol. It has also been providing a broad array of technical assistance to SADC countries to stimulate regional trade, such as simplifying tariff policies, unifying weight standards for trucks to ease vehicle wear and tear on roads, and developing common insurance carriers for truckers.
Asked about the significance of the upcoming conference, Newton said the event is "terrifically important" from the U.S. viewpoint. "Our feeling is that the region really survives and thrives together," he explained. "There has to be substantial cooperation and interaction as an economic and political unit for the individual countries to reach their full potential."
He also noted that SADC has passed its trade protocol and will soon be implementing it.
"[And] we have seen more action by SADC, both by small numbers of SADC countries and larger numbers," on a variety of issues such as peace and conflict and the floods, he said. "So I think we are seeing the kind of regional cooperation and interaction that SADC believes, and certainly we believe, is vital to their growth and success."
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)