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Southern Africa is one of the more successful regions in Africa and its regional grouping, the Southern Africa Development Community, SADC, has been in existence in some form for more than half a century, starting as the Frontline States and then adding the settler colonial territories in turn as they achieved independence or democracy with South Africa being the last ex-settler building block in 1994, 30 years ago.

So it is a tried and tested organisation, and its focus has continually been not only to create regional unity, since that as each territory was liberated being already there, but to move forward and cement the unity and use this to strengthen the region and ensure we can solve our own needs and problems without outside interference.

This continual insistence on independence of the region and its member states working together has been a stumbling block for those who wish to see the region as just a bunch of mostly quite small countries open to exploitation and domination by outsiders, with even South Africa, the largest and most developed, likely to be vulnerable without being embedded in a solid region and with all neighbours as close friends.

There are those, in several of the member countries, who want to involve SADC in their internal political disputes and work on creating divisions.

SADC does, of course, set the political standards for the whole region, the main one being that every member is a functional democracy with regular open elections that allow the people to choose their leadership.

But once the voters in each country have spoken, and SADC does check that the elections are free, fair and honest, the rest of the community accepts and defends the result. This insistence on the democratic right of everyone in the region to vote in their Parliament and Government has been, after all, a central pillar of SADC right back to its days as the Frontline States. In fact that was the first pillar of regional unity. But SADC and the neighbours do not tell people who to vote for. They choose on their own.

SADC Summits, and the many other regional meetings, are not called to create unity, that already being there, or to resolve disputes between the countries, these being non-existent, but to look forward and see how we can all work together to advance the region.

The forthcoming 44th Summit in Harare is a good example. We need to further integrate our economic planning to industrialise the region. So the Summit is a practical working session of a group of Heads of State and Government making sure all the economic, infrastructural and development bits meet up and are mutually supporting.

And of course the leaders will check that attempts to destabilise any parts of the region are being effectively resisted. The latest support given to Mozambique for its north-east troubles were particularly successful and an example of how the support of good quality neighbours can be a critical source of strength.

President Mnangagwa this week expressed his concern though over attempts to destabilise the region.

There will always be those who dislike a strong, united and stable Southern Africa, since although inward investment will always be welcome,  the region does demand that proper rules and regulations are followed, even when these are streamlined, and that everyone wins from the investment.

The sort of colonial style exploitation, and there are those who miss those days and the sort of things Cecil John Rhodes and his buddies did to create their fortunes, will not happen again.

The whole point of the original Frontline States, the Southern African Development Coordination Community formed soon after Zimbabwe’s independence and its growth into the tighter SADC as freedom moved forward in Namibia and South Africa, was to ensure that Southern Africans were in control and that economic development was real development, not looting.

There were some curious ideas floating around during the process of independence for Zimbabwe and Namibia, when it became obvious that the armed struggles could no longer be resisted, for a sort of fake majority rule, but with settlers still in control and there were outsiders who welcomed that concept. The Frontline States and then SADC resisted both attempts and only gave their backing for proper independence, even with some transitional arrangements. The South Africans had the full SADC backing as they negotiated a real conversion to democracy.

Angola and Mozambique both suffered severely from attempts to divide and rule after the Portuguese surrendered power, with fake and foreign backed movements that had to be defeated with regional backing and eventually were, allowing for proper democracy.

As the President noted, with all this success behind it, SADC is not going to suddenly become a disunited toothless bulldog.

Attempts have been made to create divisions in SADC, quite strong attempts, and they have failed simply because SADC leaders are not tools of outsiders but elected leaders who agree on the fundamentals, including the need to have an ever-stronger regional group that fits into an ever more united Africa.

Summits are important, but they are important because this is where the policies are laid down and where the sort of detailed planning by technocrats to boost economic development is considered, changed where necessary and then approved. And that planning is done through direction by Summits.

SADC, like other organisations such as the Commonwealth, has rotating venues for Summits.

This has the advantage that Heads of State and Government, and their back-up of officials and technocrats, can see each country in turn and make their assessments of how we are all doing and progressing.

President Mnangagwa stressed this point as well, that Zimbabwe needs to show off its progress, done despite those sanctions that SADC is vociferous in condemning, and can play its part in the regional development of the whole of Southern Africa.

Yes, other governments get the reports from diplomats so they know a lot, but seeing is as important as diplomatic reports.

Zimbabwe has been through a bad patch with sanctions, as other SADC states have done at other times, and the restoration work and then the new development work of the Second Republic need to be seen, by everyone including officials and journalists who will be coming.

We are, geographically, in the centre of SADC with most of the routes passing through the region passing through our territory, so things like quality roads and communication links are of more than passing interest and quite critical.

We should be showing them off, and showing we are pulling our weight.