REIS Success Stories

Botswana - Beauty and the Beef

Leeuport Oscar stands four-square in his stall at the 2015 Botswana National Agricultural Show. A ton of prime Simmentaler beef-cake, even without his blue rosette and sash there could be no doubting that he is a “Grand Champion”. Tshepo from Bothatogo, leans further over the railings, pushes his red Massey-Ferguson baseball cap to the back of his head with his motswiri (a Botswana knobkerrie), then clucks in admiration: “Mmmmm-hmmm!” he says “THAT is Botswana!”

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Complying with Technical Regulations for Market Access

The world in which we live is increasingly complicated and high-tech. A century ago, we cooked with wood, lighted our homes with oil lamps and fertilised our crops with natural manure.  Life certainly had its hazards, but it was also relatively simple.

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Evolution or revolution in SADC payment systems

"With around one-third of its countries growing by more than 6%, Africa has become the world's fastest-growing continent" declares Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, in his Foreword to their Annual Development Effectiveness Review 2013.

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SADC liberalises Trade in Services with support from the EU

As the 21st century advances, trade in "services" – as opposed to concrete products, or "goods" – becomes ever more important. According to the European Commission, services account for over 70% of economic activity in the European Union and a similar (and rising) proportion of overall employment. Globally, trade in services – imports and exports – also plays a major role in the economy.

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Safer SADC Agricultural Commodities and Agro-Processed Goods

Type: Documents & Publications, Newsletters

"We are what we eat", as they say, but consumers world-wide are increasingly aware that we are also what has been sprayed onto what we eat, what insect pests and diseases have got at it, what was in the water that nourished it – and so on: the list is endless. As modern farming becomes increasingly scientific, so consumers are more and more concerned about what goes into what they consume, giving rise to "organic" farming and the use of more "traditional" and "natural" methods.

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The EU Economic Partnership Agreements

The Economic Partnership Agreement – the "EPA" – between certain countries of the Southern African Development Community (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland) and the European Union might seem very recent and modern, but it is in fact the culmination of nearly 70 years of development cooperation, a core obligation under the EU's 1957 founding Treaty of Rome. This was initially embodied in two generations of "Yaoundé Convention", then four generations of "Lomé Convention", but in the late 1990s the whole structure of the relationship between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries was challenged at the World Trade Organisation and it was clear that the old ACP-EU cooperation model had run its course. A new approach was needed.

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The EU helps SADC promote good tax governance

Tax rarely gets a good press – or even a fair hearing. Sir Winston Churchill spoke for the majority when he said that "There is no such thing as a good tax". However, today most people also accept that taxes are at least a "necessary evil", because tax money is used to improve our quality of day-to-day living.

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