Ethiopia’s newly formed accreditation office, the Ethiopian National Accreditation Office, has received applications from five laboratories in Addis Ababa. ENAO will evaluate the laboratories and assess if they are able to meet the standards set by it.
ENAO accreditation means third party attestation that a laboratory has demonstrable competence to carry out its task said Genet Gebremedhin, Accreditation Director with ENAO.
In the past Ethiopian laboratories had to receive accreditation from international agencies from countries such as Germany and South Africa at a great deal of expense.
The Authority established a year ago began operations after undertaking preliminary steps including establishing procedures and instructions for the training of instructors as well as preparing documents. ENAO currently employs 30 people.The agency plans to grant accreditation to 60 conformity assessment entities in various sectors including medical testing laboratories, product testing laboratories, calibration laboratories and inspection and certification bodies.
ENAO operates in cooperation with three other government institutions which make up the government’s National Quality Infrastructure. The three institutions were formed in the aftermath after the dissolution of the Quality and Standards Authority of Ethiopia. The other institutions are the Ethiopian Standards Agency, National Metrology Institute and Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise.
Source:Capital
