Current status and future plans of the SADCC Early Warning Unit (REWU)

Most of the countries which constitute the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) arc primarily agrarian. Their agricultural sectors, however, generally have been unable to produce enough food to meet domestic needs or to generate enough revenue to buy food on world markets for several decades. To resolve these problems, the original nine SADCC countries agreed that a programme of regional cooperation should be mounted to accelerate economic growth, agricultural development and regional food security. The LUSAKA DECLARATION of April 1980 created SADCC with the specific objective of accelerating economic growth through regional cooperation. Cooperation in food security, one of the first concepts launched through SADCC, led to the establishment of the SADCC Food Security Programme.

A position paper on regional co-operation in Southern Africa as a counter-mechanism to avert food insecurity through implementing an Early Warning Unit.