Zambia Trained on Good Standards Practice
The Trade Hub, in partnership with the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS), ran a three-day
workshop on Code of Good Practice for the Development and Application of Standards on
Good Standards Practice
based on Annex 3 of the
World Trade Organization
(WTO) Technical Barriers to
Trade (TBT) in Lusaka,
Zambia from December 8-10.
ZABS is the Statutory
National Standards Body
(NSB) for the preparation and
promulgation of Zambian
Standards, serving the
country in the field of
standardization, standards
formulation, quality control,
quality assurance, import and
export quality inspections,
certification and removal of
technical barriers to trade.
The workshop is part of the
Trade Hub technical
assistance program for
Zambia through ZABS under the Partnership for Trade Facilitation (PTF) facility aimed at
supporting and enhancing standards and technical regulations and improving the
effectiveness of WTO TBT Enquiry Point.
ZABS Standards Manager, Mrs. Margret Lungu welcoming participants to
the workshop on Good Standards Practices on behalf of the ZABS Director
The three-day event was attended by 31 participants drawn from the government, quasigovernment, non-governmental organizations, local authority and private sector. ZABS
provides secretariat and
joint-secretariat to the
current 66 active technical
committees (TCs), from the
country’s nine economic
sectors. TCs are set up to
develop identified
standards for a country.
Besides looking at best
practices and techniques
for developing good
standards, the workshop
provided guidance in
establishing, documenting,
and putting into practice
standards development
Some of the participants at the workshop on good standards practices held
procedures in compliance
in Lusaka, Zambia
with Annex 3 of the WTO
TBT Agreement. Capacitating Zambia on good standards practices helps Zambia fulfil its
social, environmental and economic policy objectives, improves consistency between
standards and enhancing their effectiveness, and ensures that the application of standards
results in measurable progress without creating barriers to international trade. During the
workshop, Zambia’s operations were benchmarked against best practices, and a number of
areas were identified that Zambia could improve on, such as:

Stakeholder engagement, transparency, impartiality, and due process;

Development of standards appeal process; and

Gender integration in technical committees.
A recommended priority list and possible actions were developed by the participants for
implementation by ZABS.
Zambia Trained on Referencing Standards in Regulations
The Trade Hub, in partnership with the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS), under the
Partnership for Trade Facilitation (PTF) support, held two-day Guidelines on Referencing
Standards in Technical Regulations workshop in Lusaka, Zambia from December 11-12.
ZABS is the Statutory
National Standards
Body (NSB) for the
preparation and
promulgation of
Zambian Standards,
serving the country in
the field of
standardization,
standards formulation,
quality control, quality
assurance, import and
export quality
inspections, certification
and removal of
technical barriers to
trade. As part of the
Standards Expert, Dr. Geoffrey Visser facilitating during a workshop on
Trade Hub’s continued
Guidelines on Referencing Standards in Technical Regulations in Lusaka,
cooperation with the
Zambia
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) under the PTF Standards Alliance program,
the material for the workshop contained inputs from US experts on standards.
The workshop discussed the current regulatory environment, regulatory best practices,
methods of using standards in technical regulations, conformity assessments in technical
regulations and effectiveness
of regulations in order to
promote trade. Over 20
participants from regulatory
agencies, government, quasigovernment and the local
authority attended the
workshop.
The use of standards in
regulation is an effective
means of supporting national,
regional and global policies,
widely used globally.
Regulators can include
technical standards in a
regulation either by making
Dr. Visser stressing a point during the Guidelines on Referencing Standards
own standards or use an
in Technical Regulations a workshop in Lusaka
existing technical standard.
The latter saves costs and reduces delays associated with creating new standards,
capitalizes on available expertise in the private sector, and is easier to enforce. Using
available standards provides solutions to policy and technical issues, using standards
agreed upon by a consensus.
Aligning regulatory requirements with industry best practices reduces noncompliance and
avoids unnecessarily confusing regulated parties, thereby reducing the time and money
needed to enforce the regulations.
The workshop identified the need to align regulations and development of standards to
improve.