The South African National Accreditation System (Sanas), which operated under the auspices of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), is embarking on a drive to develop synergistic accreditation bodies across Africa to bolster international trade.

The continent’s largest – and first – accreditation body planned to join forces with other growing African accreditation organisations as accreditation becomes ever more important for local companies and consumers alike.

Speaking at a media luncheon on Tuesday, CEO Ron Josias explained that the accreditation industry had experienced rapid growth over the past five years, with Egypt, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mauritius and Tunisia all establishing their own units – a trend that was expected to continue as Nigeria and Ghana worked on developing their own accreditation bodies.

Further, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) boasted a multi-economy accreditation body, the Southern African Development Community Accreditation Services (Sadcas).

Sadcas represented member States that did not have their own national accreditation bodies, namely Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Sanas, which was signatory to two international organisations – the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) – which aimed to ensure comparability and acceptance of data among its member countries, now aimed to develop mutual synergies between African products and the world’s expectations.

Josias, who currently chaired the African Accreditation Cooperation (Afrac), said the memberships with the IAF and ILAC allowed for mutual recognition, which meant that accredited South African products and services were globally recognised.

Josias was in the process of working towards the international recognition and coordination of Afrac by ILAC and IAF through mutual recognition agreements, in an attempt to facilitate the continent’s global product trade and support regional integration, which formed a key part of the DTI’s inter-African trade ambitions.

Afrac described its role as enhancing intra-African trade and facilitating the acceptance of Africa’s goods and services in export countries through the recognition of Africa’s conformity assessment infrastructure as equivalent to those in other countries.

“Accreditation is established as a means to minimise risk … and boost the confidence in a product by the consumer,” explained Josias, adding that it provided significant added advantages and improved competitiveness.