Southern African Development Community

Immediately before the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980, the Frontline States created the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC) in order to foster regional economic cooperation and diminish economic dependence on the outside world, especially apartheid South Africa. The organization was based on a rather modest strategy, which mainly emphasized economic coordination in a series of sectors and, in particular, the mobilization of development assistance to the region as part of the anti-apartheid struggle, especially from the Nordic countries. Keywords: development; international trade; peace; political economy; regionalism