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Open Skies for Africa
application of this liberalization remains pending. Currently, the understanding of all COMESA member states is that the establishment of a joint competition authority remains the missing link before liberalization of air services can be applied.
The Southern African Development Community SADC’s roots were created in the 1960s and 1970s, when the leaders of countries with black majorities and national liberation movements coordinated their efforts on a political and military level to bring an end to colonial and white minority rule in southern Africa. The initial grouping was the so-called Front Line States, an informal organization founded in the mid-1970s with the goal of achieving black majority rule in South Africa. Its members consisted of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (Rowlands 1998, p. 926). On 1 April 1980, these seven states plus Malawi and Swaziland, all black majorityruled southern African countries, issued the so-called Lusaka Declaration, which paved the way for the establishment of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference on 17 August 1981, in Maseru, Botswana (Tsie 1996, p. 84). This organization was not a formal authority based on a treaty, but primarily the outcome of a conference of independent southern African states whose primary objective was to reduce their dependency on South Africa by coordinating interstate projects in a decentralized manner. Soon the Southern African Development Coordination Conference experienced its own limitations, because the decentralized set-up did not include clear lines of reporting or accountability, both of which are necessary when implementing regional projects (Mandaza and Tostensen 1994, p. 109). On 17 August 1992, SADC was formally founded by treaty (SADC 1992, p. 17). The SADC Treaty, which basically transformed the Southern African Development Coordination Conference into SADC, was later called the Windhoek Declaration and was adopted by the founding members of the Southern Africa Development Community and newly independent Namibia. The main objectives of SADC include development and economic growth, poverty reduction, and enhancement of the standard of living and quality of life of the peoples of southern Africa while supporting the socially disadvantaged through regional integration (SADC 1992, Article 5, para. 1). The objectives also include developing common political values, systems, and institutions and promoting and defending peace and security. To achieve the objectives, SADC is to harmonize the political and socioeconomic policies and plans of member