What those countries need right now is a non-corrupt government which is highly unlikely, as it requires a complete overhaul of the culture.
Actually it does not really go against our culture here, it's just that we have bad awareness, and I don't think a lot of people understand the power that democracy gives them.
Of course, the other problem is that there isn't really a viable alternative to the ruling party. The opposition has and is seen as, at least, a party catering for racial minorities.
A cure to HIV/AIDS would be necessary as well to grow a population to sustain or even produce the economy. All those three countries have HIV percentages going into the 15-20% of the entire population, with Botswana even going to 25%.
Population growth isn't necessary and can be a bad thing. The more worrying factors of HIV infection rates are the people that it takes out of the workforce, takes out of the community, and puts into a state that require care from outside.
Access to treatment and better awareness would help, but it won't fix the problem.
Possible ways of getting the funds to become a relevant international power are:
1.)Mining - Namibia and SA have a highly profitable diamond mining operation going on, primarily run by one company (De Beers). If the governments are able to get hold of the industry and keep it state run it has and already is a huge cash cow for the region. SA also has huge quantities of metals and coal. Main point here is keeping it out of the hands of Rio Tinto and making sure the cash doesn't leave the country.
Nationalisation is often talked about here, but considering the way the government runs things, it would be an utter disaster.
If the money is pocketed by some corrupt politician, rather than some overseas megacorp, it makes very little difference to the man or woman on the street.
Nationalisation of the mines was a point in the original Freedom Charter, but things have changed... Mandela also seems to have held this view discussing things around the time of 1994. Things would definitely go south if the mines were nationalised, some sort of ingrained public outreach system would be far better... but this is likely wishful thinking.
Of course, Julius Malema, head of the ANC Youth League, who fits the descriptions of a know-nothing political loudmouth and a racist, won't stop on this issue.
He is best ignored. Some people here realise this, and I hope that number is growing.
3.)General industry - The region and especially SA has the ability to become the main supplier of general goods for the whole of Africa. The automotive industry already provides a huge share of the GDP in SA and will keep on doing this as long as the low production costs are maintained. (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Africa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Africa for more info)
Good general industry requires stable business and a committed and educated workforce. I'm not sure if that can exist, but there isn't any special phenomena preventing it... just several difficulties.
It all boils down to keeping money inside the country and getting a good government that actually wants to help the country and not himself and his 3 wives.(
Zuma
Zuma ).
It is more about distributing the money inside the country in a better way.
Remember that SA has huge wealth disparity as a legacy of the Apartheid era. Most of the wealth is in the hands of white people, who are an ethnic minority.
Wealth is slowly diffusing across racial barriers, but there is a problem here: too much potential for a few people to get the wealth, and leave most not much better off than they were during Apartheid.
There is too much emphasis on taking what there is, rather than using what there is to build more. This country simply can't become a developed nation, at its current level of wealth. There isn't enough to go around, and the reason that there is reasonable affluence in some places, is because this wealth is very badly distributed.
Zuma isn't even the big problem here. Most of the damaging corruption happens at lower levels than that- and I am talking even down to the level of our police officers. And Zuma isn't even that bad compared to our previous president, who would blame everything on racism and
denied a connection between HIV and AIDS. But Zuma's sexual antics are a pretty bad role model for this place... at least he isn't as bad as King Mswati.
Namibia and Botswana and Zimbabwe aren't all that big compared to South Africa. Physically they have a lot of land area, but they have few people- SA has a population of nearly 50 million, which is something like 10 times more than the population of one of those nations.
If South Africa led a sort of a union between southern African countries, it would be interesting, but in the current state, it would probably be just like inheriting more trouble for us.
But seriously, our problems don't come from Rio Tinto stealing our gold, or whatever. If such companies stopped existing tomorrow it would be bad for us. Our real problems are very much internal. It's how the wealth within the country is distributed that is a problem.