By Aldridge Dzvene | Positive Eye News
In a defining moment for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Ministers from across the region convened in Harare, Zimbabwe, on 20 June 2025 to reaffirm their collective resolve to reposition education, science, technology and innovation as the foundational pillars of regional integration and economic transformation. The Joint Meeting of Ministers of Education and Training and of Science, Technology and Innovation, hosted under the auspices of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, was anything but ordinary, it was a strategic gathering with far-reaching implications for the region’s future.
Delivering her keynote address, the Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration, Ms. Angele Makombo N’Tumba, set the tone with a message of urgency, clarity and commitment. She underscored that the region’s aspirations outlined in the SADC Vision 2050 and the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (2020–2030) demand a decisive shift from policy pronouncements to practical implementation. With the theme of transformation echoing throughout the proceedings, the meeting delved into frameworks and initiatives designed to drive industrial development, cultivate human capital, and embed innovation into the DNA of Southern Africa’s growth trajectory.
Among the flagship proposals was the operationalisation of the SADC University of Transformation, a bold reimagining of higher education as a productive engine rather than a passive institution. With a focus on pharmaceuticals, agro-processing, and mineral beneficiation, the university is expected to deliver graduates equipped with practical entrepreneurial skills tailored to the region’s industrial needs. This initiative marks a paradigm shift from traditional academia to action-oriented learning, aimed at closing the glaring gap between education systems and labor markets.
Equally transformative was the unveiling of two key frameworks, the Draft Higher Education Strategic Framework and the Revised Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Strategic Framework. Rooted in the aspirations of the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap (2015–2063), both documents seek to cultivate a culture of innovation, flexibility, and lifelong learning. These frameworks target the critical challenge of youth unemployment and under-skilling, with a deliberate focus on equipping citizens, especially the youth, with entrepreneurial and industry-relevant competencies.
To reinforce these efforts, the Secretariat, in collaboration with stakeholders such as RUFORUM and OBREAL Global, is implementing the University-Industry Co-create Project (UNII). This initiative seeks to build a region-wide culture of entrepreneurial universities, spaces where students, faculty, and industry players co-design curricula, nurture innovation ecosystems, and foster cross-border collaboration. Supporting this push is a new baseline study on the region’s entrepreneurship and innovation landscape, which provides a data-informed starting point for shaping national and regional interventions.
However, the conversation extended beyond tertiary education to the foundational levels where real transformation begins. Ms. Makombo N’Tumba lamented the sobering fact that many learners across the region, especially the most vulnerable, still lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. The Roundtable on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy revealed critical learning gaps, prompting renewed efforts supported by the Gates Foundation and UNICEF. The Secretariat is rolling out a suite of interventions aimed at addressing these gaps, with a firm understanding that no industrialised society can be built on weak educational foundations.
In addition to intellectual growth, the meeting also recognised the importance of learner and teacher well-being. Programmes such as Future Life Now, School Nutrition, Care and Support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL), and O3Plus, supported by UNESCO, MIET Africa, and the World Food Programme, are being scaled up to ensure that health, nutrition, and psychosocial support are fully integrated into education sector planning. These initiatives represent a holistic approach to learning, where academic achievement is not pursued in isolation but in tandem with wellness and social equity.
The Ministers further reviewed the progress on the SADC Qualifications Framework, which aims to promote the mutual recognition of qualifications across member states. Fourteen countries have made progress in developing national qualifications frameworks, while regional guidelines on Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Accumulation are being designed to enable learners to transfer credits and complete studies across borders, a significant step toward academic mobility and workforce integration.
Technological investment was also high on the agenda. The introduction of the SADC 5-year Cyberinfrastructure Strategy aims to pool resources across borders for collaborative research and development to address shared socio-economic challenges. This includes using digital infrastructure to confront issues such as healthcare, agriculture, poverty, and climate change. At the policy level, a concept proposal for the establishment of a regional Centre of Excellence in STI Policy and Measurement was tabled, envisioned to drive data-driven policy formulation, monitor innovation performance, and track progress toward Agenda 2063 and STISA goals.
Yet, all of these ambitions rest on one pressing challenge, financing. Ms. Makombo N’Tumba candidly pointed out that most Member States are still struggling to meet the agreed target of investing at least 1% of GDP into research and development. Capacity constraints in producing science, technology, and innovation (STI) data remain widespread. To bridge this gap, the Secretariat, with support from the World Bank, is rolling out the Regional Statistics Project to build national capabilities in STI data generation and analysis.
Gender equity in innovation also received attention. Zimbabwe signed the Charter establishing the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Organisation (WISETO), becoming the 12th Member State to do so. The WISETO framework, once fully operationalised, is expected to drive female participation in STEM fields and accelerate the creation of national chapters that support women-led innovation, research, and technical leadership.
Ultimately, the 2025 Joint Meeting in Harare was not merely a summit of minds but a summit of resolve. It marked a pivotal recommitment to using education and innovation as the bedrock of inclusive development and regional unity. As Ms. Makombo N’Tumba rightly concluded, the time to act is now. The frameworks are ready, the vision is clear, and the challenges, though real, are surmountable. What remains is an unyielding commitment by all Member States to implement, fund, and monitor the policies that will shape the region’s destiny.
In a world rapidly defined by artificial intelligence, green energy, digital economies, and knowledge-based societies, Southern Africa cannot afford to be left behind. The Harare meeting may well be remembered as the moment the region decided not just to imagine a better future, but to build it.
