ARSO Secretary General, Dr. Hermogène Nsengimana delivering his presentation

Rwanda Standards Board (RSB), on 17th July 2017, organized Workshop on the Role of Regional Standards in Promoting Made in Africa Products. The workshop took place at RSB Headquarters in Kigali and its organization was in furtherance of the continued partnership with the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO).

Acknowledging the goal of developing tools for standards development, standards harmonization and their implementation to enhance Africa’s competitiveness on the global market through trade and uplifting the welfare of African consumers by ARSO, Rwanda as an ARSO Council Member commits to advance standards that will promote the country’s economic development leading to high quality Made in Africa products and in return enable competition on regional, continental and world markets.

Against that background, the Secretary General of ARSO, Dr. Hermogène Nsengimana,  was invited and chaired the workshop on the role of regional standards in promoting Made in Africa products. In his remarks, the Secretary General emphasized that:

“Standards are set to facilitate trade. Setting standards by understanding the nature of the country to ensure their relevancy (uniqueness) should be the target of every National Standards Body (NSB) and thus, a key contributor to its sustainability. Also, more focus should be set on the quality of standards made and develop standards basing on demand”.


ARSO Secretary General interacting with participants

Dr. Hermogène Nsengimana reiterated that there is a need to create awareness of standards and engage stakeholders. In addition, a need to challenge standards set that are irrelevant and applicable to our nation is also indispensable to setting up a culture of standardization in a country as this leads to taking ownership of standards.


RSB staff contributing in the workshop

During the workshop, Mr. Raymond Murenzi Director general of Rwanda Standards Board expressed gratitude to ARSO for promoting the Made in Africa products which are standards compliant and able to compete regionally and at international markets. He reminded that Rwanda has set up clear Quality Policy and the Policy is anchored to the promotion of Made in Rwanda products. He added that as the Made in Rwanda campaign gains important strides, promotion of Made in Africa products which are standards compliant is a good way to increase product competitiveness, broader markets and sustainable development of African economies.

As a recommendation from the workshop exchanges, it was advised and RSB staff expressed commitment to start setting up and forwarding work item proposals on both African and international standardization levels as well as preparing technical workshop reports as a basis of future standards to be developed.