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 (entitled Southern Africa: Towards Economic Liberation) ratified by the nine signing states (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe). 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.[1]