Pretoria, South Africa 28July 2015 (ECA) - A regional conference on Building Democratic Developmental States for Economic Transformation in Southern Africa ended Wednesday last week in Pretoria, South Africa, with far reaching recommendations to provide policy guidance and roadmap on how countries in the region can achieve economic transformation and sustainable development through the developmental state paradigm.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the three-day meeting, the conference participants stressed the importance for concerted effort to develop a visionary and effective leadership across sectors of society, especially political leadership necessary for promoting structural transformation and accelerated economic development.

It also called for the capacity of democratic developmental institutions like parliament and political parties to be enhanced as key actors a in a democratic developmental state project.

"Civil society must redefine its involvement in the economic and political development of countries in the region premised on complementarity and creative engagement with the state," the conference recommended.

Among the recurring issues that participants came up with in their discussions, was the weakness in state-civil society relations in building synergies, complementary and common development vision for most countries.

It was argued that Southern Africa does not have the requisite progressive legal frameworks, including well-crafted constitutions to support development of strong and capable institutions, necessary for promoting democratic developmental state.

The conference noted that there was limited development coalition and consensus, especially among the political and business elite, on the development agenda and frameworks.

According to participants, this creates discontinuities in policy orientation pronouncement by different political regimes.

"There is a need to promote constitutionalism in which the rule of law, political accountability, citizens' voice and power are given prominence in governance," the communiqué stated.

To support a developmentalist State project, regional and international institutions, frameworks and agreements should promote an enabling environment for increased intra-African trade, the conference recommended.

The regional conference was organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa Southern Africa Office in collaboration with the UN Development Programme, Southern Africa Trust and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.