The Southern African Development Community and the Challenges of Southern Africa Regional Security

Abstract

Southern Africa currently faces several challenges threatening the regional’s security architecture. Many of these challenges are inter connected and can be identified as causes of insecurity or factors contributing to insecurity,  and take many forms, including governance issues, intra-state conflicts, and social inequality and election manipulations. Moreover, they constitute a major impediment to the socio-economic development of the African continent. This paper draws upon mostly primary sources including treaties, protocols, reports, communiqué, and statements, as well as secondary information from previous research.Based on data from official documents and qualitative interviews, this paper found that SADC lacks the capacity and culture to deal with some of the challenges facing the region. And its legal and political framework in dealing with some of challenges is seriously questioned. Thus the regional body needs time and more experience for the successful evolvement in dealing with variety of challenges and crises such as unconstitutional government changes in Southern Africa. The paper recommended that SADC member states must strengthen regional body,  and they must enhance the capacities of the