Most countries in Africa have established crop variety development programs and established seed delivery systems. Most of these organizations are public sector and are often inefficient and unable to meet national seed demand in their respective countries.

A number of initiatives are currently underway across various sub-regions of Africa to harmonize seed policies and regulations. The objectives of the initiatives are to facilitate:

· Easier movement of seed and germplasm across national boundaries
· Creation of regional seed markets, leading to economies of scale
· Increased investment by private and public entities
· Improved services to farmers for increased productivity in agriculture

The SADC Seed Initiative

The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) comprises 14 member countries; Angola, Botswana, Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Together, they cover a total area of 9, 277 million ha with a population of 195 million people. The countries are bound by the Declaration and Treaty of SADC launched at a Summit in August1992 in Windhoek, Namibia. The theme was towards economic integration to stimulate regional trade and cross border investment for the benefits of the region.

Harmonization of Seed Rules and Regulations

The seed industries in the region differ a great deal. While some countries within the region have well developed seed industries backed with legislation consistent with current liberalization policies others are still in their development stage. Some countries have seed Acts and their attendant regulations and have capacity to enforce them, others do not have or may have them but lack the capacity to enforce it.

The system of certification also varies and this causes problem especially with the nomenclature that is being used. Some countries are members of International Seed Testing Association (Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia) and others are not and acceptance of seed from one country by the other is generally a problem

Although SADC is becoming a common market in line with the Declaration and Treaty, the seed regulations are not yet harmonized. It is still difficult to trade freely among member states. Seed systems remain user unfriendly, time consuming and complicated.

Efforts to Achieve Harmonization of Seed Regulations

Efforts of harmonization of seed rules and regulation in the region gained momentum in 1994 when the Common Wealth Foundation supported the recruitment of two international consultants to collect information on seed situation in the region. This culminated into the convening of a regional workshop that was held in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1994. The participants agreed in principle that harmonization of seed regulations needed further discussions, but felt that any future studies include national consultants who better understand the situation in the region.

In November 1999 SADC mobilized some funds with the support of Belgium Technical Assistance to convene a regional meeting. This meeting identified specific areas to be addressed on issues of harmonization of seed rules and regulations including common variety list, regional referee seed testing, seed certification scheme and seed trade regulations to ease seed movements across borders.

The Sub-Saharan Africa Seed Initiative (SSASI)

Early in 2000, the World Bank was concerned that there was little impact being made on the investment in crop improvement in Sub-Saharan Africa due to inadequate seed delivery systems including policy and regulatory restrictions.
Through the Sub-Saharan Africa Seed Initiative (SSASI) the African stakeholders and the World Bank agreed to establish efficient and sustainable seed delivery systems that provide reliable supply and choice of quality seed. Importantly, SSASI was also to promote a regionally coordinated, country-driven process of policy review, institutional strengthening, and innovation to foster amongst other issues the harmonization of relevant seed policies across countries to bring about competitive and larger market place for seed trade. It encourages seed systems to be deregulated, integrated and made more market-oriented.

The Action Plan in Southern Africa

The Action Plan for Southern Africa was formulated to address the above issues in the SADC region first starting with four pilot countries namely; Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is envisaged that more countries would be included in a second phase, building on the strengths and lessons learnt.

The World Bank coordinated the Plan with financial support from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), GTZ Supported Small Scale Seed Production by Self Help Groups Project (based in Zimbabwe), and the Bank's own resources and is being implemented in consultation with seed sector stakeholders in the four pilot countries.

The Action Plan Process

In the absence of a regional seed specific institution within SADC, the World Bank engaged COWI Consulting Engineers of Denmark to provide technical assistance and the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI) of Zambia to provide sub-regional coordination.

A start-up workshop was held in Lusaka, Zambia in February 2000 with participants including representatives from public and private seed sector, COWI Consultants, World Bank, SADC and USAID. The workshop endorsed the Action Plan, and decided the following steps to implement it:

· The identification of Focal Points in member countries to provide national coordination. The SCCI in Zambia provided regional coordination and Secretariat of the Action Plan.
· After the workshop, the consultant from COWI and the Coordinator from SCCI made visits to all four countries, meeting more stakeholders and explaining the process, establishing contacts and seeking support.
· The preparation of national seed sector compendia by local consultants following consultations with national stakeholders. The compendia described national seed industries in great detail highlighting the status, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for further development.
· The national seed compendia were presented by local consultants and discussed at high-level national workshops comprising public and private research, seed companies, quarantine, extension, NGOs and donors.
· In preparation of these workshops and to verify the content of the seed compendia, local stakeholders were further interviewed on current issues and the potential for improvements in seed supply systems.
· Considering the outcome of the interviews and the workshop recommendations a Status and Opportunity Report for each country was prepared. These reports describe current institutional and regulatory arrangements and summarize workshop recommendations concerning the possibilities for strengthening of the seed systems and for regional harmonization of regulations.
· Based on the analysis of the four Status and Opportunity Reports, a Regional Strategy Document was prepared and discussed at a regional workshop by stakeholders, which included stakeholders from the four countries and the remaining 11 countries as observers.
· During the whole process the Coordinator provided progress reports every month to the relevant stakeholders at national and regional level to keep them informed of the progress being made to the Action Plan. The SADC Seed Security Network has now taken up this coordination role.

The regional workshop was held in September 2001. It was organized by the SADC Seed Security Network and funded by the French Government through FAO. The workshop endorsed the need to move forward to implement the specific areas that were agreed for harmonization at the four national workshops and the regional workshop which included:

· Formulation of common registration and release procedures of varieties
· Collaboration and harmonization in seed testing
· Collaboration in seed certification including nomenclature
· Simplifying plant quarantine regulations

The Way Forward

The workshop recommended that specific technical working committees be formed to look at those specific areas for harmonization that have been agreed. The stakeholders agreed that it was time to implement what had been agreed.

The process is now at a stage where funding is being sought to put in place technical committees to work out the mechanisms. When that is completed, it is expected to receive an automatic approval from the political leadership, as the issues are part of the wider vision of SADC. The current bottleneck and determinant of when this process will end depends on the financial good will the region might receive.

Conclusions and Lessons Learnt

Efforts on harmonization of seed rules and regulations in the SADC region have been slow. At the same time it is not an easy subject to be concluded especially with the current differences that exist within member countries and the lack of the much needed funding for such an activity. The meetings that have taken place in the past have offered an opportunity to stakeholders to appreciate the problems associated with seed trade in the region. They also provided an opportunity for regional stakeholders to know each other and share experiences thereby creating more confidence to the process of change.

Some of the reasons that have contributed to the slow pace of harmonization include:

· Lack of understanding initially by stakeholders particularly from seed certification institutions on the need and the benefits that can accrue from harmonization. This has now been overcome through the process of continuous consultations and dialogue.
· Fragmented and un-coordinated donor efforts, each with a different approach or agenda to the process of harmonization.
· Lack of regional institution responsible for seeds, which also contribute to fragmentation of donor support and lack of follow up on agreed concrete issues. This has currently been addressed with the setting up of the SADC Seed Security Network, unfortunately whose continued existence is threatened for lack of funds.
· Funding to implement the already agreed areas of harmonization has been a real bottleneck. Currently the process is on hold due to lack of funding to proceed with implementation.

The Declaration and Treaty of the Southern Africa Community (SADC) and especially the protocol on trade has provided enough frameworks in which to move forward on harmonization of seed regulations. Currently, therefore it is not an issue for debate as to whether we need to harmonize seed regulations or not. What is at stake now is to seek solutions on the issues identified. The region should continue to source funds to implement the issues identified. Edward Zulu, SADC Seed Security Network, P. O. Box 4046, 43 Robson Manyika Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe; E-mail: ezulu@fanr-sadc.co.zw