Growth and Macroeconomic Convergence in Southern Africa

This African Developement Bank Working Paper No 130 (June 2011) investigates convergence in real per capita GDP and macroeconomic policy and stability indicators within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Empirical tests for the period 1992-2009 showed no evidence of absolute beta and sigma convergence in real per capita GDP among the SADC economies. Although absence of convergence does not necessarily imply lack of economic growth, further empirical assessment of possible conditional beta convergence did not reveal any tendency of convergence to own steady states. The tests indicated that Botswana and South Africa's real per capita GDP converged to a common stochastic trend while the rest were characterised by a boundless drift. Click here for the full paper.

What Does the Future Hold for SACU? From Own Goal to Laduma! Scenarios for the Future....

This paper discusses the outcomes of a recent scenario-planning exercise on the future of Southern African Customs Union (SACU), an exercise that involved a group of  SACU experts and other interested parties. The paper gives an account of the scenarios developed, which range from SACU collapsing to a scenario where it deepens into a common market.The exercise first mapped out the key certainties and uncertainties that SACU is facing. These range from the certainty that SACU will be impacted by the global economic slowdown to the uncertainty over whether an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will be concluded and what the final content and configuration of this agreement will be. The impact of these circumstances (and others) will shape the future of SACU.

The key certainties and uncertainties identified were then used to map the likelihood of these elements transpiring and what their potential impact will be on SACU. They constitute the gameboard of the scenarios. On the gameboard four quadrants are envisaged, each representing a different future for SACU. SACU’s current position is noted on the board, as well as its ideal future. Driving forces are identified that would either move SACU towards or away from this ideal future. The group envisaged four possible futures for SACU and named them ‘Laduma! ’, ‘Wild Card’,‘Own Goal’ and ‘Red Card’, with ‘Laduma! ’ representing the quadrant in which SACU’s ideal future lies. Click here to read more...

Proceedings of the 2009 FOPRISA Annual Conference

A publication entitled Proceedings of the 2009 FOPRISA Annual Conference was recently released. The book is an assemblage of papers presented at the Formative Process Research on Integration in Southern Africa (FOPRISA) conference held in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa from 14 to 15 July 2009. The papers published in this book were commissioned by the Botswana Institute for Develeopment Policy Analysis, and as with the previous proceedings the papers discuss the political and economic dimensions of regional cooperation and integration, the monitoring of SADC, as well as relations with the international cooperating partners.

The papers in this volume represent all the FOPRISA themes, which are: Democratic development; Politics, defense and security cooperation; Regional trade and its relations to the international trade system; and  Economic harmonization, finance and investment. Copies of the proceedings are available at the BIDPA Library.