The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been in existence since 1980, when it was formed as a loose alliance of nine majority-ruled countries in Southern African known as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), with the main aim of coordinating the development projects in order to lessen economic dependence on then apartheid South Africa.

The founding Member States are:

• Angola,
• Botswana,
• Lesotho,
• Malawi,
• Mozambique,
• Swaziland,
• United Republic of Tanzania,
• Zambia and
• Zimbabwe.

The Windhoek declaration signed at the Summit of Heads of State and Government on August 17, 1992 in Namibia transformed Coordination Conference in to the Development Community with a common vision on multi-dimensional areas of regional integration.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) whose headquarters are in Gaborone, Botswana, has 15 Member States, namely;

• Angola,
• Botswana,
• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
• Lesotho,
• Madagascar,
• Malawi,
• Mauritius,
• Mozambique,
• Namibia,
• Seychelles,
• South Africa,
• Swaziland,
• United Republic of Tanzania,
• Zambia and
• Zimbabwe.

The SADC official languages are English, French and Portuguese.