The Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards presents this week’s article which was extracted from the Barbados Advocate which highlights stakeholder dialogue that took place in Barbados with comments from Chair of the Caricom Regional Organization for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) Dianne Lalla-Rodrigues.

It states as follows:
“Thursday 26th November 2009 marked the official start of a two-day stakeholder dialogue on 'Strengthening Caribbean Co-operation towards Standards and Quality,' which was held at the Accra Beach Resort.

It is part of a project aimed at improving the regional co-operation in the field of standards and quality.  According to the chairman of the Caricom Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), Dianne Lalla-Rodrigues, the dialogue is in keeping with CROSQ’s mission to harmonise and implement standards and to facilitate international competitiveness for the enhancement of the social and economic development of the region.

“Since the establishment of CROSQ in 2002, the Secretariat as well as the number of projects undertaken has grown significantly. The region is embroiled in several trade agreements which can provide new opportunities for the production and export of goods and services, provided we embrace the shift in the focus from tariff based measures to quality competitiveness and market access,” she said.

CROSQ’s strategic themes focus on Harmonisation of Standards, Metrology Capability, Conformity Assessment Capability, Accreditation Co-operation, Regional Quality Infrastructure, Financial Sustainability and Organisational Efficiency.

The chairman said National Standards Bodies in the region face severe challenges in getting the financial human and physical resources required to operationalise these themes.

“The CROSQ Secretariat is by no means exempt from these challenges because the Secretariat depends to a large extent on member states for the resources it needs to realise these themes effectively and efficiently, “ Lalla-Rodrigues noted.

She stated that the region must make every effort to ensure that each member state has the capacity to participate effectively in all aspects of the regional system, either by building national capacity where feasible or ensuring access to that capacity at the regional level when national capacity is not feasible.

“This activity will provide the opportunity for NSBs and Private Sector Intermediary organisations to examine challenges perceived by market actors to jointly identify shared capacity building needs and to identify how best to move forward in developing action based capacity-building programmes,” the CROSQ official added