The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has finalised the development of the SADC Investment Climate Scorecard which will facilitate the improvement of the business environment in the region.
Development of the Scorecard is one of SADC’s interventions to make the region a preferred investment destination with an enabling business environment backed by legislation, procedures and various rules of operation that make it easier and attractive for investors to invest in the region.
An improved business environment will also benefit local companies as this will facilitate trade and help them reposition their business into the regional and global value chains.
The Scorecard facilitates monitoring of progress made by Member States towards regional integration goals, provides information, and creates awareness about the openness of the business environment of the SADC region. The information in the Scorecard will also facilitate benchmarking the state of reforms and monitoring both trends and dialogue across the SADC Member States.
The Scorecard supports and promotes national reforms to harmonise investment policies to conform with regional policies and align with international best practices. These reforms are done through National Action Plans on Investment (NAPIs).
Ms. Angèle Makombo N’tumba, Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration at the SADC Secretariat said “the investment Climate Scorecard, combined with national reforms through the NAPIs, will enhance the competitiveness of the private sector in the SADC region. Once actualised, the two developments will help attract and increase inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region.”
Fifteen out of sixteen SADC Member States participated in the Investment Climate Scorecard.
The development of the Investment Climate Scorecard started in June 2022 with implementation support from the World Bank Group (WBG) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The SADC secretariat has successfully supported Member States to develop their NAPIs and as of October 2023, eight Member States Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia, Seychelles, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe had benefited from this support, while three others were underway. This support is part of the implementation and domestication of the SADC Investment Policy Framework (IPF) to harmonise national laws, regulations and practices of the individual Member States within SADC while ensuring consistency.
SADC aims to attract FDI by improving those factors that are crucial to investors, outlined in the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP). These factors include a stable political and macroeconomic environment, favourable regulations, quality economic infrastructure, qualified human resources, transparent legal systems, regional market integration, and a harmonised investment regime.
The two activities are part of the Support to Improving Investment and Business Environment (SIBE) Programme. SIBE is a five-year Programme implemented by the SADC Secretariat and financed to the tune of €14 million by the EU under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF). The programme kicked off in August 2019.
The overall objective of the Programme is to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth and support job creation through the promotion of intra-regional investment and FDI in the SADC region, in particular for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
