Mnangagwa hands the baton to Madagascar as SADC doubles down on industrialisation and energy transition

From the SADC Summit (image source)

Reporter

Southern Africa’s leaders convened in Antananarivo for the 45th SADC Summit, where Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa formally handed the chairpersonship to Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina—marking a planned rotation that shifts stewardship from Harare to Antananarivo for the coming year. The handover closes a chapter in which Zimbabwe championed agro-industrial value chains and infrastructure delivery, and opens one in which Madagascar has signalled a focus on industrialisation, agricultural transformation and energy transition aligned to regional priorities.

The institutional baton-passing began last week at ministerial level: on August 12, the SADC Council of Ministers confirmed Madagascar’s Dr. Rafaravavitafika Rasata as Council Chair, succeeding Zimbabwe’s Prof. Amon Murwira, with the meeting adopting the 2025 theme “Advancing Industrialisation, Agricultural Transformation, and Energy Transition for a Resilient SADC.” The Council is the bloc’s policy-shaping workhorse and its leadership change typically foreshadows the Head of State rotation at Summit.

On Sunday and Monday in Antananarivo, the Summit stage provided the set-piece moment: Mnangagwa’s formal handover to Rajoelina. Zimbabwean outlets covering the proceedings highlighted the outgoing chair’s scorecard and his call for deeper integration, while South African public broadcasting previewed the handover as a central feature of this year’s gathering. The optics matter: by moving from a Harare-hosted 2024 summit to Madagascar’s 2025 stewardship, SADC signals continuity in agenda even as political ownership rotates.

Industrialisation remains the region’s top priority, but pathways are changing. The push toward agricultural transformation acknowledges climate volatility and food-security gaps, while “energy transition” recognizes both the global decarbonisation drive and SADC’s own load-shedding realities—most acutely in South Africa, but echoed in generation constraints elsewhere. The framing suggests Madagascar will be expected to shepherd practical cooperation around grid stability, cross-border interconnectors, and unlocking renewables alongside minerals-for-energy value chains.

Other areas of focus for the regional bloc include security stabilization in Mozambique through continued SADC Mission draw-down management and economic recovery support in Cabo Delgado. Sadc will also have to navigate member-state polls with SADC observer missions and post-election dialogue, amid perennial debates about standards and consistence as well as advancing AfCFTA-aligned border reforms to lower logistics costs for landlocked members.

These files demand deft consensus-building more than headline-grabbing announcements, yet chairs can shape tempo and tone. From Zimbabwe’s perspective, the handover is an opportunity to underline continuity rather than a curtain-call. Outgoing-chair messaging from Antananarivo dwelled on achievements and integration priorities, a point Mnangagwa himself underscored in public updates around the Summit. The Council’s theme alignment means Harare’s industrial policy emphases will not be orphaned; instead, they meet Madagascar’s own development agenda at a useful intersection: agro-processing (rice, vanilla, fisheries), green energy potential (wind and hydro), and maritime logistics that connect Indian Ocean trade to inland SADC markets.

Two near-term markers will reveal how Madagascar intends to imprint its chairship. First, watch for concrete follow-ups on energy interconnectivity and regulatory harmonisation—areas where “summit speak” can stall without timelines. Second, track project-level collaboration in agri-value chains, where cross-border sanitary standards, storage, and financing are as decisive as slogans.

For business readers in the region, the practical takeaway is to monitor three lanes: (1) any SADC-brokered easing of border times and costs for food and manufactured goods; (2) signals on renewable procurement frameworks and grid links that could crowd in private capital; and (3) the treatment of strategic minerals within regional value-addition schemes. Rotations change who holds the gavel, but the policy runway, industrialisation, agricultural resilience, and energy transition remains the same.