By ebosele@hotmail.com –
The 17th ARSO Champions Meeting has set an ambitious target to expand the coverage of African Harmonised Standards from more than 25 per cent to 50 per cent of tariff lines under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The target was announced as the 32nd General Assembly of the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) opened in Mombasa, Kenya, with participants focusing on the role of standardisation in facilitating intra-African trade.
The meeting is examining ways to strengthen the adoption of ARSO Marks of Conformity and harmonised standards as African countries work towards removing barriers to the movement of goods under AfCFTA.
The proposed expansion of harmonised standards is expected to provide businesses with common quality benchmarks across a wider range of products traded on the continent.
A major component of the initiative is the wider adoption of the ARSO Quality Mark under the “One Certificate” vision. The initiative seeks to enable businesses to test and certify their products once, with the certification recognised across participating AfCFTA markets.
ARSO said the approach would help reduce technical barriers to trade (TBTs), which often result in additional certification requirements and increased compliance costs for businesses seeking to access new African markets.
The impact could be particularly significant for small and medium-sized enterprises, which often face greater challenges in meeting different technical and certification requirements across multiple markets.
For African manufacturers, greater alignment of standards is expected to facilitate the movement of locally produced goods across borders, while enhancing their competitiveness within the continent’s emerging single market.
The 17th ARSO Champions Meeting is expected to contribute to a policy roadmap for strengthening standardisation as a practical tool for advancing intra-African trade and supporting the implementation of AfCFTA.
Participants include representatives of national standards bodies and other stakeholders, including the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS), Rwanda Standards Board and Namibian Standards Institution (NSI).
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