On 24 June 2022, SADCSTAN in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme and Environmental Compliance Institute (ECI)meeting organized a sub-regional workshop on harmonization of standards on vehicle emissions. This meeting was a follow up to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Minister’s meeting where SADC Member states were urged to among other things phase out high Sulphur content diesel and migrate to 50 ppm Sulphur content diesel by 2022 and mobilize resources for refinery upgrade for fuels to comply to 50ppm Sulphur content. Currently, 10 out of the 16 countries in the Southern Africa Development Community have fully implemented low Sulphur fuel standards. These are Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zambia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana and Namibia
The meeting was officially opened by the SADCSTAN Chairperson, Ms. Romana Marunda and provided a platform to raise awareness and provide an action plan for the harmonization of standards on vehicle emissions in the SADC Region. The SADC Secretariat and UNEP were also in attendance. Participants acknowledged the significance of harmonization of standards in eliminating technical barriers to trade, boosting trade and seamless flow of goods as well limiting cross boundary pollution.
The importance of limiting vehicle emissions from a systems perspective (looking at both fuels and vehicles) was underscored. Presently, fuels standards are addressed in the technical committee on energy (TC 16) while standards on vehicle technology are addressed under the technical committee on automotive and transportation (TC 2). Participants called for coordination between the two technical committees to ensure wholesome reduction in emissions from vehicles within the region/
Moving forward, the technical committee will develop working drafts of the proposed harmonized standards which will then be reviewed at the committee and enquiry stage before being approved
The initiative has been supported using funding from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).
