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South Africa initiated the establishment of a small-scale chemical and biological weapons program in the early 1980s and terminated it shortly before the first democratic elections were held in 1994. This paper considers the lessons for disarmament which can be learnt from South Africa's chemical and biological warfare (CBW)) program, in particular, what can be learnt about, (i) the factors which motivate States to develop biological weapons programs; (ii) the factors which influence the nature, scale and duration of such programs, (iii) how BW programs are detected (or not), and (iv) which factors influence the decision to terminate such programs. Chandré Gould is General Coordinator of the BioWeapons Prevention Project (BWPP). She pursued researches on Biological and chemical arms inside the Center for Conflicts Resolution.