“This paper assesses the state of progress in human development across selected key development indicators in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. This is a largely descriptive exercise based on a review and presentation of data accessible from various sources at the time of writing. The period roughly covers the 1990’s up to the mid 2000’s. In the policy sectors where SADC countries have shown a less than satisfactory performance in terms
of human development, this paper will serve as a measure of the challenges to be overcome in those social sectors across the 14 SADC member states. The indicators covered include: demographic trends (annual population growth rate, population size, and
the rate of urbanisation), access to social services (sanitation, water, electricity), indicators of inequality (HIV prevalence, infant mortality, Gini Index and safety and security), gender advancement.The conclusion drawn is that many SADC countries are performing poorly, though some progress has been made but that the scale of human developmental challenges facing the majority of the SADC countries across many of the indicators remains extremely daunting.”
