Socio-politico-cultural, economic and strategic realities of the southern African sub-region of Africa brought about the need for the coming together of its member states, though amorphous in the formation, to address their common overarching economic problem in South Africa. The geographic, economic and colonial factors in the sub-region prior to the 20th century, formed a series of politico-economic and security implications. The same cemented the first generation of the sub-region political elite together to wage liberation war against first Portuguese colonial domination of Angola and Mozambique, second Rhodesia (Zimbabwean) and third, South Africa. The offshoot of this anti-colonial and the anti-apartheid systems are linked with the zeal at which the DuBoisian prophecy affected Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah in fighting against colonialism and racism in Africa. The liberation of southern African Lusophone states and Zimbabwe (the perceived economic giant in the sub-region) brought about the formation of a politico-economic group: the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). The germaneness of forming a united front against white racism and an urge to foster economic development amongst the member states against economic dependence on the Pretoria government during the apartheid regime loomed large in its formation. The end of the apartheid system and eventual coming to power of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa elicited another hegemonic rivalry in the newly created Southern African Development Community (SADC) to accommodate South Africa. Political rivalry between Harare and Pretoria led to the incorporation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a member of the politico-economic organization. The political, economic and strategic implications of the African Renaissance, another fashion of Pan-Africanism that is tacitly rejected by some SADC states as South Africa’s grand-design to economically and socio-politically dominate them, is an issue that students of southern African politics still contend with.
