For example, South Africa and Mozambique have combined to provide the physical transport, communication and power infrastructure as the foundation for the development of services and manufacturing. This is what is known as the Maputo Corridor. The joint efforts by our two countries vastly improved the costing structure and competitiveness thereby attracting significant foreign direct investment to the area. Another example is the Lebombo corridor which brings together three countries, Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa, working together to develop environmental friendly projects including attracting eco-tourism. Several neighbouring countries, including Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique, joined to built a major road to transport goods to places between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.
More projects are in the pipeline.
Besides the normal economic advantages, these projects have deepened democracy and good neighbourliness while making development in our region more sustainable. We need to strengthen the partnership between the countries of the North and the countries of the South especially, those of us in Africa. The problems we face, cannot be addressed by Africans only. While we are ready to do as much as we can, we hope those countries that have more to give especially our northern partners, will find it in their hearts and their budgets to assist. With confidence, our leaders meeting at the OAU Summit in Algeria in 1999 declared this the African Century.