Costed Action Plan for SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The SADC Industrialization Strategy holds great promise for the rapid economic transformation and catching up with the industrializing and developed regions. To this effect, the mutually supporting strategic interventions in the areas of industrialization, competitiveness and regional integration constitute the essential building blocks. They were to be underpinned by quality actions and policies to enhance the productivity of the physical and human resources deployed. The economic dynamics are to be situated within stable macroeconomic and conducive microeconomic environments for national and firm/enterprise level development and prosperity. The Strategy underscores the necessity of pursuing three strategic growth paths, namely: (i) agro-processing; (ii) mineral beneficiation; and (iii) manufacturing value chains development. The strategic goals will not be achieved without removing three binding development constraints: (i) infrastructure; (ii) skills; and (iii) finance. The analysis supporting the Action Plan (Part I) throws up a number of conclusions in the areas of industrialization and value chain development in light of the SADC initial development conditions and the global dynamics of the 21 st Century; competitiveness challenges and related capacity building demands; and the imperatives for deepening regional integration. - Industrialization and Value Chain Participation The three industrial paths are variations of a single theme, namely greater value chain participation, as a critical driver of the Strategy in light of its potential for expanding production possibilities, nationally, across borders or globally. Value chain participation/planning must assess entry possibilities and take specific account of infrastructure capacity, availability of skills and financing opportunities. It should equally take account of ease of doing business within a widened regional economic space. Actions related to these interventions areas should be conducted in tandem with value chain identification studies and development. The key challenge to policy makers and investors is to identify and prioritize entry points in value chains. Given time and resource constraints, it will be essential to focus on a limited range of highpotential regional value chains, and through learning-by-doing, and demonstration effect, increased impetus for value chain formation/participation will be generated. The key to success are productivity, efficiency and competitiveness. Value chains will develop only where tasks are efficient in comparative cost terms. Currently, the bulk of value chains in SADC are global and take the form of exports of unprocessed/semi-processed items (forward integration). 138