The African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) forum will hold in Nigeria from June 22 to 24. It is expected to bring together standards authorities from 54 African countries to brainstorm on how to harmonise standards for goods and services. The forum is an opportunity to rally the continent to one regime of standardisation to boost trade, Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA writes.
At present, Nigeria and, indeed, the continent has no clear and coordinated approach to standardisation of goods and services. The lack of a uniform regime of standardisation is believed to be responsible for Africa’s meagre share of global trade put at three per cent.
For a country such as Nigeria that is seeking to diversify her economy, following the sharp drop in revenue caused by the fall in oil prices, there is an urgent need to standardise her goods and services to make them competitive in the global market place.
According to experts, this means that Nigeria potentially stands as the biggest beneficiary of any arrangement that would usher in a regime of standardisation to ease the movement of goods and services within and outside the continent.
It is against this backdrop that the election of the Director-General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr Joseph Odumodu, as president, African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO), in Yaoundé, Cameroun, two years ago, raised the hopes of not a few industry operators and stakeholders. The expectation was that Nigeria would ride on the platform of the continent-wide campaign to harmonise national and sub-regional standards to boost trade and perhaps, increase her share of the global trade.
Incidentally, Odumodu was aware of such expectation while the importance of standardisation to the country’s economic fortunes was not lost on him. This was why on assumption of office, he urged a stronger ARSO and massive investment in quality infrastructure at national and continental levels. He also expressed optimism that if all heads of government and heads of standards authorities in Africa heeded the call for a uniform standardisation, the quality of goods and services from the continent would improve and attract more buyers (more income for investors and workers) and more employment for youths. This, he noted, would help the continent transit to an industrialised economy which products would be globally acceptable.
Now, an ample opportunity for Odumodu to further push the standardisation agenda and position the country to benefit from the initiative is here. As ARSO president, Nigeria will host heads of standards authorities from 54 African countries in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) between June 22 and 24. The three-day conference tagged: ‘ARSO Presidents’ Forum’ is an opportunity for the standards regulators to brainstorm on how to engineer free flow of goods, services and technology across the continent. The forum aims at activating the collective efforts in standardisation that will break the barriers to trade for the continent to prosper.
ARSO, an inter-governmental body, was founded in 1977 by the Organisation for African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). With its secretariat in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, the organisation has its roots in the African independence heroes’ desire for inter-African trade as key to the continent’s prosperity and their understanding that standardisation is the strategy for achieving it.
Accordingly, ARSO is mandated to harmonise national and sub-regional standards as African standards. It is also mandated to promote and facilitate exchange of experts, information and cooperation in training of personnel in standardisation activities. The association also has the objective to coordinate the views of its members at the International Standardisation Organissation (ISO), IEC, OIML, Codex and other organisations that engage in standardisation activities.
However, despite this inspiring mandate, the association has not succeeded in rallying the whole of the continent to one regime of standardisation. This, according to experts, is not unconnected with the fact that many African countries (including those that have ratified the ARSO constitution) are not committed to the success of the body. Many of them are also not paying their dues and are not participating in ARSO activities. Worse still, many of them don’t even have a national standards body; their standardisation activities are said to be carried out by an ordinary directorate within a ministry.
The task before Odumodu is therefore, enormous. However, going by the activities lined up for the forum, observers say the SON DG appears to have a hang on how to turn things around. For instance, the ARSO President’s Forum has three sub-events, namely the ARSO CEOs Roundtable, the ARSO Made in Africa Expo and the African Standards Day Seminar. The CEOs Roundtable is an exclusive conference for only the 54 heads of standards authorities in Africa since they have to iron out their differences and move the continent forward in standardisation and internal trade.
The Made in Africa Expo is a trade fair where exhibitors from all over Africa and seekers of standard products will meet, learn, make enquiries or transact business as they wish. A wide range of products will be on the stands and they will be good products befitting of a gathering of Africa’s standardisation experts, industrialists, marketers and seekers of high quality products. The only companies, which can display their products in this fair are the ones that present evidence of current approval from their country’s national standards body.
On the other hand, the African Standards Day Seminar will have Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development as resource person. He will speak on ‘The Role of Standards in Promoting Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Africa.’ Discussants will be selected from among the heads of standards authorities to provide additional country perspectives.
A Director at SON and Chairman of the Local Organising Committee, Dr. Paul Angya, said invitations to the forum have already gone to the standards authority in each African country as well as to key industrialists and business people. He said Africa’s trade situation will never be the same again after the forum, adding that it promises to be a turning point in the continent’s joint effort to make progress.
Some quality management practitioners who spoke with The Nation say once all the heads of standards meet and subscribe to standardisation as a proven strategy for the individual countries and the continent, their interest in and commitment to ARSO will increase and that will make the body stronger. Also, those of them that have no national standards body will, under the influence of those that already have, will begin to strive to have theirs.
Also, those who are not building up their national quality infrastructure will also learn from those who are. As the quality infrastructure improves across the continent, better African products will emerge, winning more buyers from within Africa and beyond, and making increased inter-African trade and increased African share of world trade a big reality.
When this happens, Nigeria would certainly benefit. A Quality Management Practitioner and National President, Association of Systems Management Consultants, Mazi Colman Obasi, said for instance, Nigeria’s lack of a national quality infrastructure is responsible for its damaging economy and brand reputation.
A national quality infrastructure is a system of institutions, which jointly ensure that products and services produced in the country meet predefined specifications. It also provides technical support to companies so they can improve their production processes and ensure compliance with regulations or international requirements.
Obasi lamentedthat lack of quality infrastructure is not only partly responsible for Nigeria’s rising unemployment, but its remaining globally competitive. “Until we have many companies that are accredited with ISO 9000 management systems certification, we are not going anywhere; we cannot export anything,” he said, insisting that the country should work towards having a quality management plan.
Obasi called on the authorities to fast-track the establishment of a National Quality Policy (NQP). Without NQP, Nigeria’s standardisation efforts will continue to look uncoordinated and unclear. NQP’s objective is to make quality the way of life in Nigeria. It will define the apex standardisation institution in the country; clarify the boundaries for each of the regulatory agencies; minimise conflict between them; enhance cooperation between them; and identify existing as well as needed infrastructure as well as chart its own implementation.
Obasi said: ”Quality is number one. It is the first thing that ought to be considered as the nation focuses on building a robust export-based economy.” He regretted that despite being acknowledged globally as one of the largest consumer markets, Nigeria is yet to be accredited by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), the regulatory arm of the ISO.
The expert said countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya and Mauritius have since been accredited by the IAF, in line with global emphasis on quality. According to him, for Nigeria to be accredited by IAF, it must have in place an NQI which refers to all aspects of metrology, standardisation, testing, quality management, certification and accreditation that have a bearing on conformity assessment.
Estimates by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United States (U.S.) Department of Commerce show that standards and related conformity assessment (checking that products and services measure up to standards) have an impact on 80 per cent of global trade in commodities. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) requires its members to use international standards of the type developed by ISO to avoid the technical barriers to trade owing to differing national or regional standards.
At present, products and services manufactured in the country lack global quality certification. They are denied access to markets in developed economies, a situation that has been a pain in the neck of manufacturers, as their productivity and competitiveness continue to suffer. According to experts, standardisation will boost the competitiveness of locally made products at the international market and ensure the global acceptance of products and services from Nigeria.
This is true for Nigeria considering the fact that her manufacturing sector is still emerging, depending almost totally on other countries for her supplies of manufactured products. The nation does not have much to offer other than raw materials and that makes the people the poorest in the world. Cocoa, rubber, shear butter, petroleum, iron ore and other commodities go cheap from Africa and once the other continent has processed them into secondary or tertiary products such as beverages, pharmaceuticals, shoes and machines, Nigerians buy them at a huge cost.
