Deputy Minister Abrahams Opens SADC Meeting on Quality Infrastructure and Trade Barriers

Deputy Minister Alexandra Abrahams opened the 41st annual meeting of the SADC technical barriers to trade structures on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. The three-day event takes place at the Protea Hotel in Johannesburg. This gathering aligns with the Southern African Development Community’s 2026 theme: “Advancing Industrialisation, Agricultural Transformation, and Energy Transition for a Resilient SADC.” Abrahams stressed how quality infrastructure plays a key role in this push. The article covers her main points on linking quality systems to growth and tackling trade barriers.

Abrahams tied quality infrastructure directly to rural development, industrialisation, and economic growth across southern Africa. She called it a critical component for the region’s progress. These systems help build stronger economies by supporting better production and trade.

Quality infrastructure is a critical component to facilitating rural development and industrialisation and in turn, economic growth in the southern region of the African continent.

The Technical Barriers to Regional Trade Annex to the SADC Protocol on Trade sets up a framework for this work. It focuses on spotting and removing trade barriers caused by differing standards, technical regulations, or conformity assessment procedures. Technical barriers are rules that can block smooth trade between countries. This annex helps SADC members align their systems for fairer regional business.

SADC shows growing engagement in international quality infrastructure forums. Abrahams urged building scientific, technical, and diplomatic capabilities. This effort aims to shape global standards that fit Africa’s realities and allow equal participation.

This must be underpinned by deliberate investment in scientific excellence, technical depth, and coordinated diplomatic capability if we are to shape outcomes rather than respond to them.

Key pillars include:

• Scientific excellence to produce strong research.
• Technical depth for reliable testing and standards.
• Coordinated diplomatic capability to speak with one voice.

Abrahams called for stronger national standards bodies, accreditation systems, and metrology institutes. These groups need to create credible data and influence global technical committees. She also pushed for training experts and negotiators to join platforms on digital trade, green technologies, and advanced manufacturing. Such steps ensure standards match the region’s production needs and rules.

To achieve this, we must strengthen our national standards bodies, accreditation systems, and metrology institutes so that they can generate credible data, influence technical committees, and anchor Africa’s positions in evidence.

“This also requires building a cadre of skilled experts and negotiators, who can engage consistently in global standard-setting platforms and ensure that emerging norms… are informed by the production realities, development pathways and regulatory capacities of our region.”

Agricultural transformation demands a fresh look at quality infrastructure across the value chain. From primary production to agro-processing and export, farmers and businesses face strict sanitary standards, traceability rules, and sustainability benchmarks. Abrahams said boosting testing, certification, and inspection in agriculture is vital. It improves food security, raises productivity, and opens doors to better regional and global markets.

Strengthening testing, certification, and inspection capacity within the agricultural sector is therefore essential to improve food security and productivity, and to unlock access to higher-value regional and international markets.

As SADC moves forward with the African Continental Free Trade Area, or AfCFTA, key steps include consolidating standards, mutual recognition of conformity assessments, and stronger institutions. Abrahams ended by stressing a coordinated, well-resourced approach to quality infrastructure. She said it will help create an integrated, competitive, and resilient SADC economy.

A coordinated, well-resourced, and forward-looking approach to quality infrastructure will be essential if the region is to move towards an integrated, competitive, and resilient economic bloc that delivers sustained growth, expanded market access and tangible opportunities for its people.