The history of Namibia has passed through several distinct stages from being colonised in the late nineteenth century to Namibia's independence on 21 March 1990.
Land reform in Zimbabwe officially began in 1980 with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, as a program to redistribute farmland from white Zimbabweans to black Zimbabweans as an effort by the ZANU-PF government to give more control over the country's extensive farmlands to the black African majority. Before the implementation of these policies, the distribution of land in what was then known as Rhodesia saw a population of 4,400 white Rhodesians owning 51% of the country's land while 4.3 million black Rhodesians owned 42%, with the remainder being non-agricultural land. The discrepancy of this distribution, as well as the overall dominance of the white population in the newly-independent but largely unrecognized Rhodesian state was challenged by the black nationalist organizations ZANU and ZAPU in the Rhodesian Bush War. At the establishment of the modern Zimbabwean state in 1980 after the bush war, the Lancaster House Agreement held a clause that prohibited forced transfer of land, this resulted in changes in land distribution from the willing sale or transfer by owners being minor until 2000, when the government of Robert Mugabe began a more aggressive policy.
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana.
The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is a customs union among five countries of Southern Africa: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Its headquarters are in the Namibian capital, Windhoek. It was established in 1910.
The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), the forerunner of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was a memorandum of understanding on common economic development signed in Lusaka, Zambia, on 1 April 1980. It is formalised as the Lusaka Declaration ratified by the nine signing states. Some of the main goals for the Member States were to be less dependent on apartheid South Africa and to introduce programmes and projects which would influence the Southern African countries and whole region.
The African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ) is a free trade zone announced at the EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit on 22 October 2008 by the heads of Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC). The African Free Trade Zone is also referred to as the African Free Trade Area in some official documents and press releases.
Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd et al. v. Republic of Zimbabwe is a case decided by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal. The Tribunal held that the Zimbabwean government violated the organisation's treaty by denying access to the courts and engaging in racial discrimination against white farmers whose lands had been confiscated under the land reform program in Zimbabwe.
The Southern African Regional Universities Association was established in 2005 as a membership based association for the 66 public universities in the 15 countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
South Africa–Zimbabwe relations have been generally cordial since the end of apartheid in South Africa, although there have been tensions due to political troubles in Zimbabwe in recent years.
Mugabe and the White African is a 2009 documentary film by Lucy Bailey & Andrew Thompson and produced by David Pearson & Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock. It has won many awards including the Grierson 2010 and been BAFTA and Emmy Nominated. The film documents the lives of a white Zimbabwean family who run a farm in Chegutu, as they challenge the Fast Track land redistribution programme that redistributed white-owned estates, a legacy of colonialism and UDI, beginning in 2000. The film follows Mike Campbell, his son-in-law Ben Freeth, and their family as they challenge Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwean government before the Southern African Development Community tribunal for racial discrimination and human rights violations. The film premiered in the UK on 21 October 2009 at the London Film Festival.
David Richard Namwandi is a Namibian politician and academic. He served as the Minister of Education from 2013 to 2015 and is the founder of the International University of Management (IUM).
The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) is a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Southern Africa under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The members of SAPP have created a common power grid between their countries and a common market for electricity in the SADC region.
George Tuliameni Kalomoh is a Namibian politician and diplomat. He is a former ambassador of SWAPO to India, ambassador of Namibia to the United States of America, assistant secretary-general in the United Nations, and deputy minister of foreign affairs.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a regional economic community in Africa with twenty-one member states stretching from Tunisia to Eswatini. COMESA was formed in December 1994, replacing a Preferential Trade Area which had existed since 1981. Nine of the member states formed a free trade area in 2000, with Rwanda and Burundi joining the FTA in 2004, the Comoros and Libya in 2006, Seychelles in 2009, Uganda in 2012 and Tunisia in 2018.
William Michael Campbell was a white African farmer from the district of Chegutu in Zimbabwe. Together with his son-in-law Ben Freeth, he rose to international prominence for suing the regime of Robert Mugabe of violating rule of law and human rights in Zimbabwe, in the case of Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd and Others v Republic of Zimbabwe. His struggle was the subject of an award-winning documentary, Mugabe and the White African.
Since the end of apartheid, foreign trade in South Africa has increased, following the lifting of several sanctions and boycotts which were imposed as a means of ending apartheid.
Benjamin Freeth, MBE is a White Zimbabwean farmer and human rights activist from the district of Chegutu in Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe. Together with his father-in-law, Mike Campbell, he rose to international prominence after 2008 for suing the regime of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for violating the rule of law and human rights in Zimbabwe. Freeth and Campbell's lawsuit against the Mugabe regime—the case of Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd and Others v Republic of Zimbabwe—was chronicled in the award-winning 2009 documentary film Mugabe and the White African.
The Turnhalle is a building in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Built during the era of Imperial Germany's colonisation of South West Africa, it has been through a variety of uses, most prominently as the venue for the 1975–1977 Turnhalle Constitutional Conference, an attempt to quell armed resistance waged by the People's Liberation Army of Namibia against South African occupation. The Turnhalle housed the Tribunal court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) until disbandment in 2012.
The Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) is a water management organization established by member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) whose territory contains the Zambezi river basin.
