Nicholas Mudungwe, who is a Cluster Development Expert, has enrolled for a course on Quality Infrastructure for Sustainable Development, which covers the following topics: Standards, Technical Regulations and related Quality and Trade Topics. This is a blended course, which include online and face to face interaction.
The Course was started with a workshop in South Africa from the 10 to 15th February 2014. The next six months would see online interactions and assignments, and the final phase of the course will be held in Germany in October 2014. The Course is being funded by the German Government. The course covers the following topics; fundamentals of standardization; economic impact of standardization; technical regulations and standards, conformity assessment, standards and national quality and standards in trade agreements.
This course has a very good strategic fit with COMESA/LLPI as it is working with SMEs to promote production and trade of quality products. Furthermore COMESA/LLPI has plan to establish a centre of excellence for the region to deal with testing, accreditation and certification of products and processes of the leather value chain. The course has thus come at the right time, as it will inform the evolution of COMESA/LLPI's dream.
COMESA/LLPI would therefore like to extend its great appreciation to the German Cooperation Agency and PTB. See below some pictures, which were taken during the kick off workshop, which was held in at Kwalata, Pretoria, South Africa. The participants were drawn from across Africa from Egpyt to South Africa, from Cape Verde to Malawi, from Gambia to Kenya.