The capacity of many SADC member countries to co-ordinate activities in their allocated sectors and subsectors is limited. Very few member states have officials who are appointed to deal solely with SADC issues, and in cases where the local public service suffers a lack of resources in the fulfilment of its daily, ongoing tasks, SADC responsibilities are ‘over-and-above’ functions which are often left for last.

Central co-ordination within countries is becoming increasingly unwieldy and costly. For example, during the recent SADC Summit meeting in Maputo, the South African delegation consisted of some 63 persons, including the ministers of each sector that is part of SADC. Although considerable time was spent discussing security issues, no representatives from the South African departments of Defence or Safety and Security were involved in the SADC meeting.

During 1996, a committee of four member states (Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe) appointed three specialist consultants from Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe to look at the reform of the Community. Their report, published in April 1997, found that many ostensibly regional projects are, in fact, national projects. It was recommended that SADC moves from a project approach, steered by co-operating partners, to the harmonisation of policies and procedures.

The consultants also recommended that each member state establishes a national SADC committee and that a meeting of the chairpersons of the national SADC committees in member states should replace the current meeting of senior officials.

Other recommendations were that the current sector/commission arrangement in SADC should be replaced by five regional umbrella institutions.

A regional workshop was subsequently convened in Gaborone towards the end of 1997, in order to advise the Council of Ministers on the implementation of the study. Not surprisingly, the findings and recommendations were considered to be ‘controversial’ and ‘radical,’ since many smaller and less powerful states would stand to lose their function as sectoral co-ordinators, and their implementation was delayed. The 1998 SADC Summit meeting held in September in Mauritius would subsequently39 endorse "... the decision to reorient the role of SADC to include a focus upon policy formulation, co-ordination and harmonisation, the involvement of the private sector and other stakeholders in community building." The Summit also reaffirmed the necessity of continuing with the system of sectoral co-ordination by member states, the rationalisation of sectors where appropriate, and the rationalisation of the existing SADC project portfolio.

The process of building consensus on the rationalisation of SADC is bound to be long and arduous, not least because a leaner and more efficient SADC may threaten vested interests that had developed since the creation of the SADCC in 1981. The final model accepted by SADC may therefore differ significantly from that contained in the recommendations.