Projects

SADC Process

‘Rammed Earth Structures a Code of Practice’ was adopted as a national standard in Zimbabwe in 2001. As partners in that process we are stakeholders and have continued to pursue the Standardisation and Codification agenda in the southern African region. With the help of the Standards Association of Zimbabwe, a long standing NGO, SADCSTAN African Development Community Standards)ExCo(Executive Committee) were approached with a request to harmonize the Zimbabwe Standard. This was agreed to and we were invited to present to the SADCSTAN AGM in Antananarivo, Madagascar in 2007. To buy a copy of this Standard please email info@saz.org.zw. quoting SAZ 724:Code of Practice for Rammed Earth Structures. They can supply copies of this when required. The electronic version price is US$ 42.00.
Recently the SADC Standards procedures have changed to allow all technical Standards to take immediate force in law on harmonization. Thus when the process is complete 14 countries from Tanzania in the north to South Africa in the south will have a Standard covering rammed earth technology. This is significant because for all these countries cement is currently the monopoly material, meaning that for millions of urban dwellers the stark choice is to use cement and build ‘to code’, or not and risk being bulldozed as an illegal structure. Since cement is economically out of reach of a high proportion of the populations of the 14 countries they have been left in construction limbo for many decades.