The European Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
The European Union has long-standing and close relations with SADC on political, economic, trade and environmental related matters. Regional integration is part of the European Union’s genetical makeup, and over the last decades the EU and its Member States have substantially supported SADC’s efforts to deepen the integration and collaboration of its sixteen SADC Member States. Initially, the EU’s relations with SADC focused on promoting regional economic integration and infrastructure and later also expanded to cover digital transformation, agriculture and natural resource management, human development as well as peace and security. The EU stands with Southern Africa and SADC in its efforts to become a more competitive and effective actor in international relations and the world economy. The EU-SADC partnership is based on the shared belief that regional integration brings significant benefits to the citizens of Southern Africa.
Political relations
In recognition of SADC's political mandate, the EU and SADC launched a political dialogue with a first ministerial meeting in 1994 in Berlin - the Berlin Initiative. The Initiative created a structure for enhanced and comprehensive political dialogue between the two parties with a view to contribute to peace, democracy and sustainable development in the SADC region.
The EU and SADC collaborate in addressing global, continental and regional challenges to shared prosperity and peace and security, striving towards gender equality and women economic empowerment, and achieving peaceful, just and democratic societies. The partnership between EU and SADC is also committed to strengthening democracy and good governance, including cooperation on inclusive, credible and transparent elections.
The SADC Secretariat is located in Gaborone, Botswana. The EU Delegation to Botswana has excellent and well-structured working relations with the SADC Secretariat, including open and regular political dialogues. A Ministerial Partnership Dialogue takes place every two years with a Senior Officials Meeting in between every second year. The latest Ministerial Partnership Dialogue took place in March 2025 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Regular quarterly meetings are organised between the SADC Secretariat and the EU Delegation while yearly meetings between SADC and International Cooperating Partners (ICPs) also take place and aim at increasing coordination and development effectiveness.
SADC is an important actor on the African continent, and the EU is SADC’s main donor. Since the 2000s, the EU alone has contributed with more than EUR 415 million to advance the regional integration agenda in Southern Africa through SADC.
In 2023-2024, the EU has put in place a new package of programmes for a total amount of EUR 163.9 million to support the implementation of SADC’s strategic vision and the EU’s Global Gateway investment strategy. These current programmes cover a wide range of thematic areas, illustrating the depth of EU-SADC partnership on trade, digital transformation, transport, strategic corridors, biodiversity and conservation (NaturAfrica programme), transition to sustainable foods systems and support to the SADC’s Peace and Security Architecture.
There is substantial progress in implementing the EUR 12 billion 2021-2027 Multiannual Indicative Programme for Sub Saharan Africa (MIP SSA) which supports regional priorities and regional integration, and which has strengthened cooperation between the sides. The MIP SSA priority areas are aligned with SADC’s RISDP 2020-2030: human development; democratic governance, peace, security and culture; green transition; digital science, technology and innovation; sustainable growth and decent jobs; and migration and forced displacement.
Economic relations, trade and investments
Since 2016, the EU has had an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with six SADC countries: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa. Angola has also applied to join the EPA and another five members of the SADC region (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zimbabwe) are implementing an EPA with the EU as part of the Eastern & Southern Africa regional grouping. The development-oriented EPAs aim to promote sustainable development, poverty reduction and regional integration. They also support the region’s commitment to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The SADC-EU EPA guarantees duty and quota free access to the EU market for all goods originating in the SADC EPA countries, except for South Africa, which also benefits from a very generous tariff treatment. The SADC EPA countries do not need to reciprocate the market access offered by the EU; instead, they can shield their sensitive products from full liberalisation. The EU is the 16 SADC countries’ most important source of imports, accounting for 20% of their imports in 2020 (ahead of 17% from China). With a 16% share of the SADC region’s total exports, the EU is the second largest export destination after China (19%). Germany is the biggest EU trading partner for the SADC region, with 30% of the EU’s trade with the region on both the export and the import side. Total trade (exports and imports) between the EU27 and the 16 SADC EPA states amounted to €51.5 billion in 2020, with a €1.3 billion trade balance in SADC’s favour. The EU’s foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region amounted to a total stock of €85 billion in 2019, concentrated in South Africa (€45 billion), Mauritius (€15 billion) and Angola (€14 billion). The EU’s FDI stock in SADC is roughly 30% of all FDI in the region.
Transport & Transit
The East and Southern African region lacks an integrated and liberalised road transport network. This poses numerous obstacles to trade by causing severe delays and increased transport costs, as well as challenges to road safety and durability. The Tripartite formed by COMESA, EAC and SADC, which represents more than half the GDP of the continent of Africa, has prioritised infrastructure development in the region as part of a holistic effort to develop transport and infrastructure in a coordinated manner. The EU supports these efforts to speed up the movement of goods across borders in half the continent through the Tripartite Transport and Transit Facilitation Programme.
Peace, Security and Good Governance
The EU has been supporting SADC for over two decades in fostering peace, regional stability, democratic governance and accountability across the region as elements underpinning regional integration and socio-economic development. Our support is in line with SADC’s principles, namely sovereignty, equality, solidarity, peace, security, human rights, democracy, the rule of law, equity, balance, mutual benefit and the peaceful settlement of disputes. The EU is allocating €35 million to strengthening SADC’s peace and security architecture through a programme to enhance democratic governance, conflict prevention, citizen security and the fight against gender-based violence in the region. The EU is also helping strengthen institutional mechanisms for migration management that facilitates legal labour migration and prevents irregular migration and trafficking within the Southern Africa, Eastern Africa and Indian Ocean region. This programme addresses the development-security-migration nexus, and identifies positive spill over effects of labour migration on regional integration and regional economic development.
Institutional Capacity Building
As a crosscutting priority, the EU is committed to help strengthen the capacity of the SADC Secretariat to ensure it can perform its mandate and role in advancing the regional integration agenda.
The EU is financing several programmes to this effect:
- The IICB programme improves national and regional linkages between SADC’s Secretariat and its member states on one hand, and between the SADC institutions and national-level stakeholders and citizenry, on the other hand;
- The Technical Cooperation Facility provides ad hoc assistance to support and address SADC Secretariat priorities, facilitate studies and address capacity constraints;
- The EU-SADC Enhanced Policy Dialogue Facility is facilitating peer-to-peer exchanges and fostering inter- and intra-regional and cross-sectoral dialogues between SADC institutions and institutions from Europe and other regions.
Social and Human Capital Development
Social and human capital development is the third pillar in SADC medium term strategy.
Within this pillar, there is a closer engagement between the EU and SADC in the area of education and skills development. The EU is supporting SADC’s regional Qualifications Framework to facilitate legal labour migration within the Southern Africa, Eastern Africa and Indian Ocean region. There is also a close follow up on the developments of SADC frameworks on technical and vocational education and training; open and distance learning; digital skills; and teaching and learning. Further engagements are foreseen under the next programming phase (2021-2027), which will include science and technology, jobs and youth.
Environment and climate change
Cooperation between SADC and the EU recognises that climate action is of critical importance. One area of focus of the Regional Strategic Development Plan is climate change adaptation and mitigation. The EU is supporting SADC to increase the capabilities of its member states to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change and to have their voice better heard in international climate change negotiations. The EU is providing €30 million for programme implementation to support actions on climate change, food and nutrition security, and disaster risk reduction to increase the capacity of SADC to address the effects of climate change.