During the on-going Southern African Development Community (SADC) Industrialisation Week in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, on 3 August 2017, the President of the Regional Standardization Organization, Dr Eve Christine Gadzikwa said the SADC region should reposition itself through global value chains.
In her keynote address, Dr Gadzikha said the SADC region needs to strengthen capacities of regional policy makers and key stakeholders to mainstream the development and promotion of regional value chains in their development action plans
She said value chain entails a full range of activities that firms undertake to bring a product or service from its conception to its end users.
“To achieve industrialization, SADC Member States need to integrate in global value chains and upgrade in global value chains by moving to higher value adding activities,” added Dr Gadzikha, noting that the main challenge facing Africa is how to transition from the commodity-dependent growth path in which African countries find themselves, to value-adding, knowledge-intensive and industrialized economies.
Dr Gadzikwa said the SADC region should strengthen capacities of regional policy makers and key stakeholders to mainstream the development and promotion of regional value chains in their development action plans. SADC should put in place a common regulatory and policy framework for developing regional value chains.
On his part SADC Programme Officer, Industrial Policy, Dr Monnane Monnane explained that, through a study undertaken within the SADC region, six value chains clusters have been identified in the fields of Agro-processing, Mineral beneficiation and related mining operations, Pharmaceuticals, Other consumer goods, Capital goods and Services.
Dr Monnane explained that value chains expand production possibilities and enhance cross-border utilisation of the natural and human resources, but the key challenge for corporate and governance policy makers is to identify entry points in value chains.
“However, participation allows advantageous integration in the highly competitive world of the 21st century. The participation can either be regional or global, or both – either way they maximise national and regional economic prosperity,” said Dr Monnane, adding that appropriate policies should be put in place to enhance value chain participation, cluster development and in deepening regional integration.
The 2017 Industrialisation Week has placed value chains top on its agenda, recognising that one of the key changes in the organization of global production and trade that has taken place over the last two decades is the growing importance of global value chains in managing and coordinating production and trade linkages across countries.
