A World Bank think-tank on Southern Africa agrees to treat the region as a single entity in its approach to lending money to upgrade infrastructure and trade. There are very clear benefits to integration in the region and we are looking at ways in which we can contribute to programmes that transcend borders,'' said Pamela Cox, World Bank country director for South Africa and Namibia. More and more, Southern African countries are linking up in trans-border programmes such as the Maputo Development Corridor, linking South Africa and Mozambique, and the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative between Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa. An estimated 170 billion dollars is required to upgrade existing transport infrastructure in the region and governments alone cannot hope to raise such a sum. Part of the World Bank strategy includes finding ways of getting the private sector more involved.
Trade is also a hot issue in the region owing to South Africa's dominance.
But while it is common knowledge that the former apartheid state dwarfs its neighbours in the area of exports and maintains barriers to some regional imports, exact figures on intra-regional trade are lacking. The World Bank has promised to commission a study on these trade flows. The GDP of the Southern Africa nation of Lesotho, for example, has been growing by 10 percent annually over the last two years. Governments must invest in human resource development. The Southern Africa Development Community is made up of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and two new members, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Seychelles.