Ethiopia is set to establish a National Accreditation Office (ENAO). The institution will be charged to accredit the competence of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) performing activities like calibrations, tests, inspections and inspections.

ENAO has been organizing offices, preparing manuals and training personnel according to Nigussue Kibru Head of Communication and Public Service. 30 employees were trained by the South African National Accreditation System and three days worth of training on the General Accreditation Standard ISO/IEC17011 was given by experts from India in December he said.

The ENAO was officially established by proclamation in February 2011. It is a complementary institution to the three government institutions that were formed after the former Ethiopian Quality and Standards Authority was dissolved as part of the government’s National Quality Infrastructure project.

Accreditation will apply to CABs such as testing laboratories: food and associated products, engineering and textiles, medical, microbiological as well as calibration laboratories measuring volume, mass, temperature dimension etc.

Certification bodies like management systems and inspection bodies will also require accreditation.

The office also plans to accredit in the future all inspection bodies to ISO/ IEC 17020, management systems certification bodies to ISO/ IEC 17021, personnel certification bodies to ISO/ IEC 17024 and product certification bodies to ISO/IEC Guide 65.

He further said that the office has requested itself to be a member of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and can request professionals from other countries to test the quality assessment of domestic institutions and also itself vice versa.

Ethiopian organizations usually go to South Africa and Turkey to get accreditation to approve of their specific technical competence with the cost in foreign currency terms.

Source: Capital