ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to discuss the peripherality of the SADC within the context of regional resilience, ultimately focused on providing a regional policy response for the interrelated SADC region. The region within the larger spatial environment is bound to certain regional dynamics, mainly economic growth and development, but continuously considering the impacts and influences of spatiality. Development and growth are found to be inextricably linked to location, either within the diversified-relational space (dependent on endogenous growth) or within the diversified-stylised space (dependent on exogenous influences). This also reflects the intricate spatial relationship between the member countries in the SADC region.
Concepts of stagnation and backwardness of regions are associated with peripherality and marginality, which are visible from the earliest understanding of regional interaction, finding their way within the resilience literature as the ability of regions and their actors to welcome change and exhibit a certain level of readiness to adapt and grow to become agglomerations. This ability to resist stagnation, but also to balance readiness with stability, is what is found to be central to the resilience capabilities of a region, not only absorbing shocks but recovering in such a manner that the entirety is better off because of a shock, ultimately turning the negative shock into a positive new growth path.
In accordance with the principles of growth-pole theory, and supported in the new economic geography, it is emphasised that by focusing more on local interactions between a region's core and periphery, a region will be able to revitalise itself from stagnation. Once this internal openness is reached, the regions will yield more to exogenous factors and influences. In this manner, regions’ locational advantages are explored, focusing on strengthening intra-regional interaction (as a form of localised regionalism) through concentration and clustering, to overcome negative regional externalities. Peripherality within the SADC and towards the SADC will be reviewed, and recommendations will be made for pertinent regional policy response with a focus on de-locking mechanisms. This chapter serves as a theoretical base for understanding the SADC's position in the world and highlighting reasons for its lagging growth.
