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Responding to SPS trade challenges in the livestock sector in Southern Africa: National and regional dimensions

16 November 2014

The South African government’s introduction of stricter sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls on imports of livestock in May 2014 highlighted the importance of both flexible government and private sector responses to SPS challenges, as well as to and market diversification and investment in value-added processing.

At a meeting of the Namibian Livestock Producers Organisation in August 2014, it was reported that, to respond to SPS challenges, the Namibian government had moved quickly to restructure its Department of Veterinary Services “to increase capacity with regard to vaccinations and testing” and explore the scope for accreditation of private vets to immediately increase the technical capacity to meeting vaccination and testing requirements. The Namibian meat industry’s umbrella body, the Meat Board, for its part planned “eight new positions on a contract basis to relieve the temporary shortage of capacity with regard to vaccinations and testing”, and drafted a “standardized document which clearly reflects the export requirements” for the South African market.

These actions took place alongside an ongoing bilateral dialogue on an appropriate cost-effective basis for meeting South African SPS requirements, in view of Namibia’s favourable animal disease status.

The actions place in context ongoing SADC efforts to operationalise the SPS annex attached to the SADC Trade Protocol that was agreed in 2008. The efforts are being intensified with the assistance of the EU under the Regional Economic Integration Support (REIS) programme, given the growing importance of SPS issues as a barrier to intra-regional trade. It is hoped that putting the SPS annex into operation will not only strengthen the protection of human, plant and animal health in the SADC region through increasing national implementation capacities, but also provide a forum for addressing SPS issues and resolving SPS disputes.

However, SADC efforts, as illustrated by the August 2014 experts’ workshop in Tanzania, are primarily focused on information sharing and, with the help of the EU REIS programme, stakeholder training on SPS requirements.

In terms of SPS policy discussions, the SADC SPS Coordinating Committee has to date mainly focused on providing a forum for regional discussions on issues coming up in international forum, such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), Codex Alimentarius and the WTO SPS Committee.

In terms of market diversification Namibia’s Meat Board is more actively exploring markets in livestock and livestock products in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia, and looking at the goat sector in the Middle East. In the medium term, efforts are also under way to expand feedlot capacity to allow more animals to be raised locally for processing prior to export. The May 2014 SPS-based disruptions of exports to South Africa were described as a “wake-up call for Namibia to invite more investors to invest in local abattoirs and feedlots”. 

Editorial comment

The SADC SPS experts’ discussions and the bilateral Namibia–South African discussions on implementing SPS measures in the livestock sector highlight the considerable ground which still needs to be covered in moving towards effective regional mechanisms for dealing with the increasingly important issue of SPS barriers to trade.

The parameters for a regional mechanism for discussing SPS issues and resolving SPS disputes are nominally in place, with the majority of SADC member states having, to varying degrees, taken steps towards incorporating the agreed regional SPS provisions into national law. However, the process of harmonising the provisions of the SADC Trade Protocol SPS Annex with national legislation, as well as the provisions of the OIE, the IPPC and Codex Alimentarius regime, remains ongoing.

In addition, while a system of notifications of food safety and SPS issues is nominally in place, this is not yet functional. A consultancy is taking place in collaboration with the Trade Hub in Gaborone to set up the necessary structures to address and resolve SPS issues, with a draft report expected to be delivered in later in November 2014.

Meanwhile, any disputes continue to be dealt with on a bilateral basis. This generally commences with technical-level discussions and then progresses to political-level discussions if no agreement can be reached. However, a new dimension that has emerged in the Namibia–South Africa livestock dispute is the use of the law courts to challenge nationally determined SPS measures (see Agritrade article ‘ Livestock trade between Namibia and South Africa reopened by Court ruling’, 12 October 2014).

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