The SADC Secretariat, with the financial support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) convened a second capacity building programme workshop aimed at aligning industrialisation strategies of member states to SADC’s industrialisation strategy 2015-2063 using the ‘Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies’ (EQuIP) methodology. The workshop was convened in Johannesburg, South Africa on 9-13 September 2019 and follows on the first which was held from 25 -29 March 2019 and in line with the Council decision during its meeting on 13-14 August 2019, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania directing the Secretariat to ensure that Member States which had not participated in the first workshop (Angola, DRC, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and Zimbabwe) are provided with the same.
The First Phase of the SADC Industrialization Strategy covers the remaining period of the RISDP (2015-2020), and targets as one of the key deliverables, the improvement of the policy environment for industrial development through capacity building and support to SADC Member States.
A universal blueprint approach of industrial development has not worked in the past and will most probably not work in the future. Country specificities necessitate flexibility in the strategy design and the policymaking process. It also requires that countries have the capacities to design and implement effective industrial policies. With this understanding GIZ and UNIDO developed the Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP) Toolbox which aims to empower countries to design goal-oriented, evidence-based and context appropriate industrial policies.
EQuIP has been used in countries around the world to support governments to draft, revise and implement more effective and context-appropriate industrial policies. It is for this reason that the SADC Secretariat requested support from GIZ’s Sector Project and Cooperation for the Enhancement of SADC Regional Economic Integration (CESARE) to organize a second “higher-level” EQuIP workshop to gain a better understanding of the capacity development needs of member states and to familiarize participants with the core objectives of the SADC industrialization strategy. The major objective of the workshop was to gain a better understanding of the unique industrial policy objectives of member states and how EQuIP could be used to build the policy design capacities of countries to achieve regional industrialization targets. The training, besides strengthening Member States’ capacities, included building networks between and among the Member States. Participants included participants from the five (5) countries (Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe) and Zanzibar was a special invitee to the workshop.
Overall, the participants commended the Secretariat for organising the training and for equipping them with hands-on tools which would enable them analyse sectors and propose appropriate policy reforms for their economies. As a key follow up to the training, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe requested the Secretariat to provide national capacity building programmes in order to expand and increase the number of industrial policy development experts in the region. To further enhance internal capacity, the Secretariat was represented by two staff members from the Directorate of Industrial Development and Trade.
