Delegation from Republic of South Sudan Visit Rwanda Standards Board

On 27th April 2016, a Delegation comprising of 27 high officials and led by Hon. Aggrey Tisa Sabuni visited Rwanda Standards Board (RSB). The visit was part of the five day Peer Learning Mission of Civil Servants from the Republic of South Sudan to Rwanda; which program saw the Delegates pay visit to different institutions in the country. In his welcome note, Dr. Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe, Director General of Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) expressed gratitude to the Delegation appreciating their decision to visit RSB as one of the contributing agencies in enabling East African Community (EAC) integration; which block the Republic of South Sudan joined recently. While profiling the progress made by RSB since the creation of Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS) in 2003 until tobdate, the Director General emphasized that the Standards Body went through a pile of challenges but changed those challenges into opportunities to pave the way to remarkable achievements registered so far. In the guise to pioneer continually impact-making National Quality Infrastructure (NQI), restructuring of Rwanda Bureau of Standards was made priority and saw the Bureau change into Rwanda Standards Board in 2014. The restructuring aimed:

To build customer oriented NQI institutions

To enhance service delivery

To pursue accreditation and recognition of Rwandan standardization and Conformity Assessment services

To align Standards, Quality assurance, Metrology and Testing (SQMT) services with international best practices

To better assist industries to deliver good quality products to targeted markets

To build capacities in standardization and conformity assessment

To enhance synergies among NQI institutions

…and achieve the Mission and Vision of RSB:
Achieve the mission and vision of RSB

Mission

To provide standards-based services for trade promotion and consumer protection for Socio-Economic growth;

Vision

To be a trusted party in providing internationally recognized and customer-suited standardization services.

The Director General winded up the presentation with a call to South Sudan Bureau of Standards (SSBS) to take benefits from Memorandum of Understanding between RSB and SSBS earlier signed; and emphasized that RSB welcomes any collaboration efforts to make people of Rwanda and South Sudan maximize opportunities embedded in standardization and removal of Technical Barriers to Trade. Hon. Aggrey Tisa Sabuni, Head of Delegation, hailed the progress made by Rwanda in building a renewed country and with a new vision. He stressed that bilateral collaboration among institutions and countries is the main way to fully benefit from integration in the East African Community; and South Sudan will continue to learn from Rwanda as role model in striving for economic growth, trade promotion and sustainable development. At the end of the visit, the Delegation made a tour of RSB Quality Testing and Metrology Laboratories.