The Policy and Strategy for Environment and Sustainable Development (1996) of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) calls for 'a breakaway from fragmented sectoral approaches to environmental management' and urges the region to pursue 'a single agenda and strategy' to achieve the consistent integration of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in decisionmaking. Since then, great strides have been made in formalising EIA into the legal frameworks in SADC, with all SADC countries now having promulgated laws in this regard. Keywords: EIA, guidelines, legislation, regulations, SADC.