COVID-19 Conflict & Resilience Monitor – 1 September 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic came with destabilising effects on the Southern Africa Development Community’s (SADC) development agenda on industrialisation, trade and free movement across borders. COVID-19 has also had a significant impact on national politics in the region as can be witnessed through political changes and developments that have taken place in countries such as Eswatini, Zambia, South Africa and Madagascar where there have been hostilities, civil unrest and instability owing largely to economic hardships in the respective countries.

Much has changed since the Ansar al-Sunna insurgent group in northern Mozambique captured the vital port city of Palma in April 2021. The setback, and subsequent withdrawal of Total Energy from its $20 billion natural gas project in the area, shocked Mozambique’s government after years of underestimating the insurgency, and failed experimentation with mercenaries. Even so, it was oddly reluctant to accept a Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) intervention mission, first delaying in at least two SADC Summits the mission announcement and then delaying the signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) without which no troops could deploy. It now appears that this was intentionally done in order to allow for a rapid deployment of over 1 000 Rwandan military and police personnel to the area long before substantial SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) could deploy.

Peace and security remain a top priority for the future of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), where issues of governance, slow socio-economic development and armed insurgency continue to pose significant threats to the region’s long-term stability. With over 40% of the population in Southern Africa made up of young people, their potential to contribute to social development against this backdrop, remains largely untapped.

Amid a purported increase in vaccine hesitancy in South Africa, and a week of unrest in early July which caused interruptions to the vaccine drive in parts of the country, South Africa has now opened up vaccinations to the entire adult population, that is anyone over the age of 18. Despite studies suggesting that vaccine hesitancy was more prevalent among younger age groups, the youth flocked to vaccine centres in their thousands heeding the government’s call to get vaccinated against COVID-19, stifling some of the panic surrounding vaccine hesitancy.