A three-day workshop mapped the full chain for minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) — product registration, data, border checks, inspections, penalties — building clear roles, timelines, and real-world readiness. The workshop focused specifically on Eswatini’s national context and institutional set-up, using air conditioners as a concrete example.
“MEPS ensure that appliances imported or sold within the Kingdom meet minimum efficiency thresholds and support national efforts to reduce energy consumption and promote sustainable development.”
Working through MEPS implementation in practice
The first day of the workshop focused on establishing a shared, practical understanding of what enforceable MEPS require at an institutional and procedural level. Participants examined how regulations, technical standards, registration systems, and enforcement mandates need to interact for MEPS to function effectively.
A central working session reviewed the draft MEPS regulation, allowing institutions to raise implementation-related questions, clarify roles and responsibilities, resolve outstanding issues, and align on next steps and indicative timelines. This highlighted a number of edits and changes to the regulations.
Technical discussions then focused on Eswatini’s air conditioner standard (SZNS SADCSTAN HT 110:2023), ensuring a common technical understanding of refrigeration cycles, how efficiencies are being improved, implications for compliance, and how future updates could be aligned with regional SADC standardisation processes.
“In recognition of the ERS’s key function of identifying and interdicting illegitimate trade, direct MEPS employment in the country, with all target appliances details housed in referenced standards, we shall be able to better safeguard consumers.”
Making systems workable: registration, data, and borders
The second day concentrated on operational design. Using practical examples, participants worked step by step through the product registration and authorisation process, covering application requirements, verification of laboratory test reports, decision points, and the issuance of letters of approval. The objective was to define a workable, institutionally anchored process for enforcing MEPS in Eswatini.
Further sessions addressed the development of a product database, focusing on essential data fields, access rights, and pragmatic options for phased implementation.
Border enforcement was examined together with Eswatini Revenue Services, focusing on how compliance with energy labelling and MEPS requirements can be verified at the point of import to prevent non-compliant products from entering the market.
Inspections, penalties, and institutional readiness
The third day addressed post-market surveillance and legal enforcement. Working sessions with the energy regulator and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions focused on how inspections could be organised, where inspectors would be housed, how they would be trained, and how cases of non-compliance would be handled, including the application of penalties.
In the final phase of the workshop, institutions worked in dedicated streams to consolidate their respective roles, identify remaining gaps, and define concrete actions and timelines. Each institution presented its implementation plan, clearly outlining responsibilities and next steps towards MEPS enactment and enforcement.
Implementers and Funding
The workshop, which took place from 3 to 5 February 2026, was hosted by the Ministry of Energy of Eswatini with support from the Cooling Programme for Southern Africa (CooPSA), a project funded by the International Climate Initiative and implemented by GIZ Proklima.
“GIZ on behalf of the CooPSA project is honoured to collaborate with the Ministry and relevant partners on the drafting of regulations. Although the workshop ends, the real work begins here onwards.”
A practical foundation for MEPS enforcement
The outcomes of the workshop include establishing a shared, operational understanding of how MEPS for air conditioners can be implemented and enforced in Eswatini, as well as the institutions to be involved. Relevant national institutions worked hands-on through the full MEPS implementation chain: technical standards, product registration and authorisation, data systems, border controls, inspections, and legal enforcement. By working through real processes and institutional interfaces, the workshop strengthened coordination, ownership, and readiness across all involved authorities.
The workshop provided a concrete foundation for moving from regulatory frameworks to effective MEPS enforcement, contributing to improved energy efficiency, climate mitigation, and consumer protection in Eswatini’s cooling sector.
