Why did Malawi join the Southern African Development Coordination Conference in 1980?

Malawi joined the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in 1980 primarily to improve the country's economic situation and to broaden its regional ties.12

The organization, which later became the Southern African Development Community, was formed as a union of black majority-ruled countries that sought to reduce their economic dependence on minority-ruled South Africa. Despite joining this regional effort, Malawi’s government under President Hastings Kamuzu Banda maintained a controversial stance by refusing to sever formal diplomatic ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa, a decision that was unpopular with other regional leaders.3124