ABSTRACT
Southern Africa: The Context for Seasonal Forecasts The spatial context for this book is southern Africa, a region broadly considered to include fourteen members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC):3 Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (Figure 1.1). The region is characterized by both geographic and demographic diversity. The total estimated population of the SADC region was approximately 195 million in 2000 (see Table 1.1). Among the fourteen SADC countries, the recently-included Republic of Congo has the largest population, with approximately 50.5 million people. This is
followed by South Africa (44.5 million), Tanzania (30.8 million) and Mozambique (16.9 million). By contrast, countries such as Namibia and Botswana have relatively small populations (1.8 and 1.6 million, respectively).
