The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been in existence since 1980, when it was formed as a loose alliance of nine majority-ruled States in Southern Africa known as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), with the main aim of coordinating development projects in order to lessen economic dependence on the then apartheid South Africa. The founding Member States are: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Member States are Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The objectives of SADC as stated in Article 5 of the Treaty are to:
Achieve development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the people of Southern Africa and support the socially disadvantaged through regional integration;
Evolve common political values, systems and institutions;
Promote and defend peace and security;
Promote self-sustaining development on the basis of collective self-reliance, and the interdependence of Member States;
Achieve complementarity between national and regional strategies and programmes;
Promote and maximise productive employment and utilisation of resources of the Region;
Achieve sustainable utilisation of natural resources and effective protection of the environment;
Strengthen and consolidate the long-standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the people of the Region.
The SADC Secretariat is comprised of four directorates, including the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) Directorate
The SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit (RRSU) is a project within the FANR Directorate.
The main objectives of RRSU are:
Strengthen national and regional capabilities in the area of Remote Sensing, Agrometeorology and GIS;
Support early warning for food security and natural resources and disaster management
Operational activities of SADC-RRSU include
Training of agro-meteorologists in the use of satellite imagery products and GIS for early warning for food security;
Monitoring crops, vegetation and weather developments during the crop growing period using satellite images and GIS techniques;
Developing and maintaining SADC FANR website and internet infrastructure;
Developing and maintaining database of satellite images, maps and associated data.
