SADC Council approves revised regional guidelines to ease cross border transport operations
The revision of the guidelines has been informed by the lessons learnt from the implementation of the original Guidelines which were approved by Council on 6 April, to facilitate harmonisation in the movement of essential goods and services across borders during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The approved guidelines aim to balance, realign, harmonise and coordinate COVID-19 response measures with the requirements for trade and transport facilitation; secondly, to promote safe trade and transport facilitation for economic growth and poverty alleviation in the SADC region; and thirdly, to facilitate the adoption and implementation of harmonised standard operating procedures for management and monitoring of cross border road transport at designated points of entry and COVID-19 checkpoints.
The guidelines, will furthermore facilitate the implementation of SMART corridor trip monitoring system for management of the registration of cross border trips through, recording, monitoring and surveillance of driver wellness; tracking of vehicles loads and drivers; contact tracing; queue management; as well as statistical analysis and reporting.
The guidelines can be accessed through the SADC website.
