https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f5i3NNar7I

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Sunday called for Southern African leaders to drive growth by exporting finished goods instead of raw materials, according to a NewsloopTopNews video.

Mugabe assumed chairmanship of the 15-member Southern African Development Community Sunday. He spoke at the opening of a two-day annual summit. The 90-year-old leader took over in a rotating chairmanship from Peter Mutharika of Malawi after almost a decade of Zimbabwe being excluded from power positions in the 15-member organization, according to NewsloopTopNews.

SADC members include South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia, Mozambique,Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Angola, Swaziland, Seychelles and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mugabe, 90, is in line to lead the 54-nation African Union starting in 2015.

He said Africa must “wean itself from exporting raw materials and create value chains that will lead to the exportation of finished products.”

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 but flawed elections, brutal crackdowns and economic crises resulted in U.N. sanctions and made the
former revolutionary a Western pariah, NewsLoop reports.

The SADC forced Mugabe into a unity government with the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) after a violence-marred 2008 election. The coalition ended with 2013 elections, Bloomberg reports.

Mugabe, who frequently uses anti-Western rhetoric, said that SADC shouldn’t rely on foreign funding if it wanted to remain proud.

Zimbabwe must respect its own constitution if it wants credibility as head of the SADC, activist groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Aug. 14, according to Bloomberg. The Zimbabwean government hasn’t provided justice for past political violence or improved access to sanitation and water, and the country’s diamond-mining industry lacks transparency, the groups said.

“Zimbabwe will have to show its commitment to human rights now that it’s returned to the SADC fold,” said Deprose Muchena, director of Amnesty’s Southern Africa office, at an Aug. 14 press conference in Harare.

Leaders at the annual summit will talk about encouraging local processing to get greater benefit from mineral resources. They will also assess progress made toward enhancing economic integration.

SADC suffers from lack of resources and previous summits rarely resulted in concrete action being taken — a situation unlikely to change under Mugabe’s leadership, said Aditi Lalbahadur, a researcher at the South African Institute for International Affairs, in an Aug. 15 phone interview with Bloomberg.

“I’m unsure of the ability he has to further the regional agenda,” Lalbahadur said. “Zimbabwe is still regarded quite skeptically by the international community.”