Some of the participants to the meeting

On 29th March, 2017, Rwanda Standards Board (RSB), in collaboration with Rwanda National Dairy Platform (RNDP) conducted national consultative meeting aimed to streamline the dairy sector.

The Dairy sector is one of the pillars of national economy, and is considered as one of the targets of the move to promote “Made in Rwanda” products. RSB collaborates with RNDP and have embarked on the program to streamline the Dairy Sector towards standards compliance for consumer protection and boost export.

One of the key steps in furtherance of this effort was to organize a consultative meeting with stakeholders in the sector to discuss that program and come up with recommendations that would help ensure locally made dairy products are standards compliant and competitive at national, regional and international markets.

The meeting took place at Nobleza Hotel- Kicukiro and saw participation of different stakeholders including the RNDP members, members of local government at district level and service providers to the dairy value chain from farm to processed product delivery.

At the occasion of the meeting, the Director General of RSB reminded stakeholders in the dairy sector of the opportunity in doing business available in the sector and their contribution in support to the Made in Rwanda program launched by the country:

“The Dairy sector is an important sector that we wish would be among the first to embrace the promotion of the Made in Rwanda program. The Government has set up different programs that enable availability of enough milk, and thus make milk and milk products important tools on which public health and welfare should dwell. Among more than 2050 standards developed by RSB, 40% are food and agriculture standards and this shows standardization efforts aimed to support key sectors including the Dairy sector.

Director General of RSB addressing the Media

However, we still have a long journey to go so as to bring all stakeholders on board to embrace the culture and practices of standardization to safeguard consumers’ safety and concurrently produce products of quality that can be competitive on both domestic and foreign markets”.
RNDP Chairperson addressing the Media

In her remarks, Ms. Florence Umurungi, the RNDP Chairperson expressed gratitude to RSB for support to streamline the Dairy sector. She called the platform members to build their growth and processing techniques on standards requirements as they are the only way to sustainably ensure the safety and quality of their products. She promised that the Platform will continue to make possible efforts to advise new starting SMEs, the existing ones and all people involve in the milk value chain to uphold standards requirements in order to enable the sector to contribute in the development of the national economy.

During the workshop RSB made presentation on available standardization services awaiting stakeholders use, quality challenges the sector has to overcome and a roadmap was drawn towards the sector’s compliance with standards and the self-regulation efforts in that regard. In addition to that, RSB informed that all necessary support will be rendered to the Dairy sector to ensure their products comply with standards and are able to compete at the markets; thus raising the Made in Rwanda product brand.