With increased attention being paid to Africa as the next hub of commercial activities, all efforts must be made to ensure that the continent takes full advantage of this very rare and long-sought after opportunity in order to change its fortunes for good. With all these opportunities and possibilities, there is concerted need for standardization in the African market, in line with international requirements.
This is very necessary in order to ensure that products from Africa conform to global standards in order to sustain the pace of economic growth currently being experienced in the continent. Non-compliance to international standards deprives African producers the needed access to key international markets. There must be focus on the role of standardization in trade as a significant potential tool to help in achieving Africa’s sustainable development. Trade can only become a direct instrument for Africa’s development when the appropriate framework is developed to foster international trade and investment.
Compliance to standards provides Africa’s emerging trade market with the needed linkage to hitch-free relations with the rest of the world. Laudable initiatives such as the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), etc would have been much more successful, if the issue of standards were thoroughly sorted out. Africa needs quality infrastructure in order to ably compete with the rest of the world. Quality infrastructure such as a larger number of accredited testing laboratories, metrology laboratories, effective quality policy, among others, are pivotal to Africa’s trade renaissance.
Thankfully, some channels are already on ground to facilitate the realization of Africa’s international trade objective. One of such channels is the existence of the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO), which was formed in 1977. The principal mandate of ARSO is to harmonize African Standards and conformity assessment procedures in order to reduce technical barriers to trade and therefore promote intra- African and international trade as well as enhance the industrialization of Africa.
After a very promising and blissful start, ARSO, along the way, began to decline in its activities and drive. It had become obvious that more was needed to attain success in its mandate. One major challenge was in the area of finished products from Africa gaining acceptance in markets outside Africa. The general perception that products originating from the continent were sub-standard, attracted virtually no patronage in formal international trade.
The fortunes of ARSO changed for the better when, on the 19th ARSO General Assembly held in June 2013, The ARSO Members elected Dr. Joseph Ikemefuna Odumodu; the Director General/Chief Executive of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), as the new ARSO President for a three year Term beginning July 2013. Just as he did in SON, Dr. Odumodu immediately instituted far-reaching initiatives for which their implementation has greatly enhanced the activities and economic development capacity of ARSO and by extension, for Africa. For instance, during the 49th ARSO Council held in Nairobi, Kenya on the 14th – 15th November 2013 ARSO; under the leadership of Dr. Odumodu who worked assiduously towards its revival, passed a resolution and declared January 17, 2014 as the African Day for Standardisation, with a view to making this a permanent event set for every 17th day of January each year.
The African Day of Standardization is celebrated to raise awareness among African Regulators, Industry, Academia, Consumers and the entire African Citizens on the benefits of standardisation to Africa’s economy. The African Day of Standardization is to commemorate the birth and foundation of African Organisation for Standardization (ARSO) by the African Union (formerly OAU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the commitment of Founding Fathers and the twenty one (21) African Governments presented at the Launching Conference at the Ghana International Conference Centre in Accra, Ghana on the 10th – 17th January 1977, to push for the Standardization and Conformity Assessment Agenda in Africa. A theme will be set for each year’s event. This year’s theme for African Day of Standardisation is: “Standardisation as a driver for Improving Africa’s Competitiveness.”
Dr. Odumodu aims to place Africa on the global map of international trade by establishing a quality culture in Africa. This will promote both intra-Africa trade among fellow African countries; and inter-Africa trade between African countries and the rest of the world. Already, Nigeria, through the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) headed by Dr. Odumodu, has donated over 200 standards to the Republic of Cameroon, as a way of encouraging intra-African trade cooperation. Africa can set standards and donate these to the world, just as Nigeria is already in the process of doing. The gains from Africa can and will naturally extend to Nigeria, as the country is the most populous and most consumer-laden market in Africa. In turn, the Nigerian example through SON, can be adopted for Africa through ARSO, under the very same Odumodu leadership which makes synergy seamless.
There is great light at the end of the tunnel. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting that no continent will grow more strongly than Africa, over the coming years. Africa has a consumer market of over one billion, with a rapidly increasing population to ensure greater demand (it is important to note that Nigeria comprises around 20% of this total population). Africa has the fastest growing population in the world, and with this population having 70% of its people under the age of 35, the energy and recyclable human resource base is immense. It is predicted that by 2050, Africa will provide 1 in 4 of the world’s workers; twice as many as China.
Presently, the continent already has a middle class that is almost as big as the entire populations of Russia and Brazil. Africa´s economy was projected to grow by 4.8% GDP in 2013 and accelerate further to 5.3% GDP in 2014 against 2-3% global economy. This is coupled with the accelerated integration of African economies through stronger and regional economic communities, heightened intra-African trade, increased bilateral cooperation and trade agreements, and many more economic activities which have provided unifying platforms for economic growth to thrive.
In essence, the celebration of the African Day of Standardisation should remind us of Africa’s numerous potentials and the areas where the continent needs to upgrade in terms of standardization and quality assurance so that its private business persons and individual countries at large, can become indispensable in global trade.
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