. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
G/TBT/GEN/130 
30 April 2012 
 (12-2282) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
  
 
OVERVIEW OF TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES INVOLVING  
THE SOUTH AFRICAN TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INSTITUTIONS 
 
Statement by South Africa 
 
 This document contains inform ation provided by the delegation of South Africa at the TBT 
Committee meeting of 20-21 March 2012 under Age nda Item 4 (Technical Cooperation Activities). 
  
_______________ 
  
1. The South African Bureau of Standards hosted during 2011, a delegation from Uganda 
consisting of the CEO of the Ugandan Bureau of  Standards and the Director of the Standards 
Division.  The meeting resulted in the sharing of experiences and challenges in the field of Standards 
Technical Infrastructure.  A Memorandum of U nderstanding on cooperation was signed between the 
CEOs of the two entities with an action plan developed for implementation during this year. 
2. SABS together with ISO (International Organi sation of Standardization) hosted a workshop 
for the CEOs of National Standards Bodies in the SADC region from 26-29 February 2012.  The event was attended by 12 CEOs and the progra mme included discussions on issues of regional 
cooperation, intellectual property rights, learning and development and sust ainability of National 
Standards Bodies.  The event was a resounding su ccess with many participants recommending that the 
event should be scheduled on an annual basis. 
3. The SABS also hosts the secretariat of th e SADC Cooperation in Standardisation. 
4. The Mauritian Ministry for Business, Enterpri se, Cooperatives, and Consumer Protection, 
Zambian Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Industr y and the Zimbabwean Ministry for Small and 
Medium Enterprises and Cooperatives Developm ent undertook study tours to South Africa on 
different dates to investigate the technical suppor t the SABS can provide to their respective small 
enterprises.  
5. The South African National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) currently hosts 
the Secretariat for the SADC Cooperation in Legal Metrology and the Intra-Africa Metrology System 
(AFRIMETS) Secretariat. 
6. The NRCS last year provided four training interventions to the Namibian Standards 
Institution (NSI) for setting up their legal metrol ogy office. Furthermore, the NRCS facilitated 
Executive Committee meetings in Ethiopia, Kenya a nd South Africa and gave training lectures at a 
Summer school in Kenya.  
7. The National Metrology Institute of South Afri ca (NMISA) currently hosts the Secretariat of 
SADCMET which is the SADC cooperation in m easurement traceability and coordinates all the 
metrology activities in the SADC region. G/TBT/GEN/130 
Page 2  
 
  8. NMISA calibrated the national measurement sta ndards of the following African countries and 
provided traceability to the international system of units (SI): 
(a) Democratic Republic of the Congo for mass and volume standards,  
(b) Ethiopia for temperature and mass standards,  
(c) Mozambique for mass and temperature standards,  
(d) Zimbabwe for temperature standards,  
(e) Botswana for length standards. 
9. NMISA also provided assistance to Namibia Sta ndards Institute to set up their mass, volume 
and temperature laboratories and gave practical tr aining courses to their metrologist on the operation 
and calibration of these instruments. 
10. NMISA signed a bilateral cooperation agreement with Zambia Bureau of Standards to assist 
with capacity building in calibration of national meas urements standards to support the local industry 
and assist their metrology laboratories to achieve accreditation. 
11. NMISA piloted and conducted inter laborator y comparisons of national standards with 
Kenya, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and most SADC countries to determine th e degree of equivalence 
among our countries in support of the calibration and measurement capabilities which are registered 
in the international comparison database. 
12. Furthermore, NMISA developed the trai ning programme for the AFRIMETS Metrology 
School which was hosted in Kenya a nd provided metrology training to more than 80 young scientists 
from 34 African countries. 
13. The South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) hosts the secretariat of the 
SADC Cooperation in Accreditation as well as th e Secretariat of the African Accreditation 
Cooperation (AFRAC). SANAS also provided assistance to the Southern African Development Community Accreditation Service (SADCAS) th rough a Twinning Agreement between them and 
SANAS which offers accreditation services to SADC conformity assessment bodies.  
 
__________