The Executive Director of Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) Ben Manyindo has implored African states to improve the standardisation of goods and services, saying this will create better trade links and markets in various African countries and the western world.
According to Dr. Manyindo, most of African countries produce substandard goods and offer inefficient services on the market, making their products less competitive on the world market. He further said Western countries out-compete their African counterpart because of the sub-standard goods and services offered.
However, according to Dr. Manyindo, Uganda is now driving the issue of standards to services such as anti-bribery, procurement and quality services’ standardisation in tourism among other sectors.
“As Uganda, we have concentrated on products’ standards but not service standards,” Dr. Mayindo said at the opening of the four-day International Standards Organisation (ISO) regional training on Managing National Standards Development projects and Programs (MSPP) slated for September 5-8 at Sheraton Hotel, Kampala.
The training is being carried out by experts from ISO to help African countries improve on the application of the project management approaches to the standards development in providing efficient and effective services to standards developers.
The training has attracted 35 officials from 21 African member states with three ISO trainers including Charles Pierre and Nesreen Al-Khammash.
