June 2017

COMESA Seed Trade Harmonisation Regulations have been translated in 14 local languages in seven COMESA countries and will now be printed to enhance awareness creation. The targeted countries are that those that have harmonized their national seed laws with the COMESA Seed Policies and include Burundi, Kenya, Malawi Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The decision was made by National Seed Review teams from the seven countries that participated in a three-day meeting to discuss strategies to improve the movement of seeds across the region. The meeting was organized by the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) in partnership with the FoodTrade East & Southern Africa (ESA) programme.

The targeted countries are that those that have harmonized their national seed laws with the COMESA Seed Policies and include Burundi, Kenya, Malawi Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe

Five countries comprising of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe have gazetted their harmonized national laws while Malawi and Zambia are in the process of doing so. The five will embark on national awareness creation workshops of the gazetted national seed regulations. The meeting resolved to support Malawi and Zambia in the gazettement of the aligned seed regulations and or standards to ensure the seed trade reached a wider market. 

Other resolutions of the meeting included; provision of training to support small and medium seed producers using COMESA seed standards, provide country support to the development of COMESA Seed Manuals / protocols for inspections and conducting studies for new varieties; finalise production of COMESA Seed Labels and Certificates for use by seed companies; conduct COMESA Seed Baseline Study; hold the 4th meetings of COMSHIP Project Advisory Committee and Variety Release Technical Seed Meetings in October, 2017 and engage ACTESA Alliance Partners in resource mobilisation to implement proposed interventions in the short and long term.