This paper is based on research conducted recently in South Africa (SA), Namibia, Angola and Botswana. Policy and decision makers were asked to complete a questionnaire about the future of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). Although the responses to the questionnaire were low, the interaction with respondents was of a high quality. The SAIIA workshop held on 20 May 2010 provided an opportunity to receive further contributions and to refine the arguments developed previously. A scenario-planning exercise, which was held concurrently, was published as SAIIA Occasional Paper 63, ‘What does the Future hold for SACU? From Own Goal to Laduma! Scenarios for the Future of the Southern African Customs Union’. This paper remains the reflections of the author, who writes in her personal capacity.
