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2. The Socio-economic Situation of Individual SADC countries


The population of the 11 SADC countries covered by this report is about 130.6 million people. Their land area is about 554.9 million hectares giving a regional population density of about 23.5 people per square kilometre. The population density ranges from 2.1 people/km2 in Namibia to 566.5 people/km2 in Mauritius (Table 1). The population growth rate or the annual rate of change during the period 1995 to 2000 ranged from 0.8% in Mauritius to 2.9% in Swaziland. The other countries with notably high population growth rates are Malawi and Mozambique.

Table 1: Population and economic statistics for SADC countries

Country

Land

Population

Economic Indicators

000 ha

Total

Growth rate

Density

GNP per capita

Annual growth rate of GDP


000

%

people/km2

US$

%

Botswana

56 673

1 597

1.9

2.8

3 307

6.9

Lesotho

3 035

2 108

2.2

69.5

734

8.0

Malawi

9 409

10 640

2.5

113.1

163

5.1

Mauritius

202

1 150

0.8

566.5

3 796

5.0

Mozambique

78 409

19 286

2.5

24.6

131

12.4

Namibia

82 329

1 695

2.3

2.1

2 196

1.8

South Africa

121 758

39 900

1.5

32.7

3 377

1.7

Swaziland

1 721

980

2.9

57.0

1 555

3.7

Tanzania

88 359

32 793

2.3

37.1

183

4.1

Zambia

74 339

8 976

2.3

12.1

387

3.5

Zimbabwe

38 685

11 529

1.4

29.8

656

3.2

SADC

554 919

130 654


23.5



*Source: FAO (2001)

The gross national product (GNP) ranges from US$163 in Malawi to US$3 796 in Mauritius. The annual growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ranges from 1.7% in South Africa, the regional economic giant to 12.4% in Mozambique, a country experiencing unprecedented economic growth after a devastating civil war that ended a decade ago (Table 1). In Malawi, for example, the economy is dependent on agriculture, which contributes about 40% of the GDP. Agriculture supports about 85% of the population that is rural and absorbs 80% of the labour force (Minde, et al., 2001).

Fig. 1: The 11 dry zone SADC countries covered in this report.


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