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One Stop Border Post
Another major impact and a step toward the Free Movement of
Goods and Services in SADC was realised in November 2009
with the launch of the One Stop Border Post (OSBP) at Chirundu
between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This has enabled travellers to
be cleared just once for passage into another country, in contrast
with the more cumbersome situation in which travellers have to
be cleared on both sides of the border.
The OSBP concept is being rolled out for other borders in
the region such as the Beitbridge Border Post between South Africa
and Zimbabwe. The establishment of more one-stop border posts
across the region will consolidate the gains of the SADC FTA by pro-
moting the movement of goods and services between Member States.
The introduction of the one-stop border post at Chirundu has re-
duced crossing time, saving most travellers time and money since they no longer
spend long periods waiting to cross the border. Trucks now spend less time on the
road, reducing chances of accidents and social ills such as corruption, pilferage and expo-
sure to risky sexual behaviour.

SADC Regional Quality Assurance Framework
In alignment with World Trade Organisation (WTO) Principles and in accordance with
Article 16 and 17 of the SADC Trade Protocol, the SADC region has established a robust
institutional framework for addressing unnecessary Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), as 105
well as to leverage science-based Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures to protect
human, plant and animal life and the environment.
The TBT Annex to the SADC Protocol on Trade established seven active cooper-
ating structures for Standardisation (drawing from ISO standards); for Quality Assurance;
for Accreditation; and for Metrology (SQAM). The legal and institutional framework sup-
porting the technical infrastructure of the region is well formed and this is evidenced by
the highly productive annual general meeting of the SQAM institutions held each year in
the month of March. A total of 15 SADC Member States have fully functional national
standards bodies.
The SADC region has three internationally recognised accreditation bodies. The
SADC Regional Laboratory Association has a membership of 14 national laboratory as-
sociations which are in constant collaboration and capacity building.
To promote international standards and quality principles and operations, the SADC
Quality Awards have seen Member States running national quality awards competitions
to select business entities to compete at regional level. The regional quality award com-
petition has shown that the region has a very high appetite, capability and potential to
produce goods and services that can be consumed internationally.

SADC Accreditation Services
The SADC Accreditation Services (SADCAS) is a multi-economy accreditation body es-
tablished in terms of Article 15 B of the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Annex to the
SADC Protocol on Trade with the primary purpose of ensuring that conformity assess-
ment service providers operating in SADC Member States that do not have national ac-
creditation bodies, are subject to oversight by an authoritative body.
Due to the high cost of establishing and sustaining such a body and further consider-
ing the limited financial and human resources, a total of 13 Member States decided to
pool their resources to establish one accreditation body that services all of their accredi-
tation needs.