The SADC Business Council (SADC BC) was officially launched in August 2019 during the 4th annual SADC Industrialisation Week held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It is a regional apex body of national business associations of the 16 SADC member states and 6 regional business associations in Southern Africa. The main role of the SADC BC is to involve the national business associations, regional business organisations in SADC, and other stakeholders including corporates and international chambers of commerce in:
SADC decision making processes to drive the implementation of SADC plans and priority programmes
promote knowledge and information sharing between SADC and private sector
to bring in the private sector expertise, experience, viewpoints and perspectives in SADC policy making processes
Objective
The ICR Facility supported the SADC Business Council (SADC BC), a recently established apex body of national and regional business associations, in the development of its first strategy and action plan.
The strategy and action plan was developed through
the provision of expert advice and
consulting the members of the SADC BC to understand their priorities as well as
other key resource people and stakeholders, such as the SADC Secretariat.
A draft strategy was discussed in a validation workshop with SADC BC members. The final strategy is publicly available (see further information).
Result
Through the participatory development of its strategy and action plan, the SADC BC can now focus on the activities with the greatest impact. This will enable the organisation to strengthen its role as a powerful voice of the private sector and can thus contribute to shaping the regional business environment and investment climate in a conducive, sustainable and inclusive manner.