A first step towards demand-driven support in the development and expansion of a national quality infrastructure (QI) is to assess its current state. Any country’s quality infrastructure system needs be improved continuously, in order to meet the changing requirements of the industry. Meanwhile, the specific needs of the industry and starting points in this process may differ from country to country. Each QI system in our partner countries is at a different stage, has individual strengths and faces different challenges.
We aim to assess the state of the national QI in all our partner countries by means of the tool ’Ensuring Quality to Gain Access to Global Markets: A Reform Toolkit’ which has been developed by PTB and the World Bank.
The results of this complex survey serve as a basis for identifying areas of intervention. The aim is to strengthen the national quality infrastructure and improve the access of the private sector to quality assurance services (e.g. certification, product testing).
The report from Rwanda may serve as an example. The survey was conducted and published in 2020. One of the findings and key recommendations was to further develop the national accreditation system. Currently, several possible support measures are being explored and discussed with local partners as well as the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
