ATPC Work in Progress No. 88

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) introduced its trade protocol in the year 2000 to promote intra regional trade in goods and services among its member states (MS) as well as finance and investments. The overall goal of establishing the STP is to ensure efficient production of goods and services and trade across member states in particular. The ultimate goal of the STP is to reduce poverty and to enhance economic growth within the region. After ten years of implementing various STP measures, it has been found that men and women directly involved in regional trade have been affected differently both within and across countries. However, there has not been an in-depth regional comparative study to establish the magnitude of such gender impacts of the STPs. Therefore, this report presents findings of a regional study that was carried out in four countries from mid November to mid December 2010 in four SADC member states namely, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia and Zambia respectively.