Regional Standards Body

Project: Support for African Organization for Standardisation
Implementer: Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) and African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO)

In Africa, the regulatory frameworks for cosmetics and personal care products are not harmonized. Most countries that regulate these products in West, North, and South Africa do so based on a regulation that is horizontal. In East Africa, standards are prescriptive and specific to product types. These standards must be constantly updated and, as a result, are consistently behind technological innovation. Accordingly, many innovative products cannot be marketed in East Africa while local industry cannot innovate outside the limits of the standard. The incompatibility of the different frameworks creates significant issues in intra-African trade of cosmetics and personal care products. As such, a new standard for cosmetics that is aligned with global best regulatory practices should be developed and international expert opinion provided to help Africa develop the standard.

In this project, a webinar series will be conducted to support ARSO's efforts to establish a harmonized African standard for cosmetics and the personal care sectors. Webinars will cover a specific component of existing international standards and regulations, as well as the principles underpinning them, and hone in on a case study of a best practice standard for cosmetics and personal care products. Webinars for interested ARSO member stakeholders will feature presentations by industry and government experts from the U.S., EU, GCC, and Africa.

ARSO Member Countries:

Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sudan, South Sudan, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

• Learn more about ARSO
• Learn more about PCPC
• about this project

Project: Training in Good Regulatory Practices for Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) Teams in Government Ministries
Implementer: Business Regulatory Review Agency (BBRA)

Zambia has made significant strides in implementing many of the business regulatory reforms mandated by the 2014 Business Regulatory Reform Act and subsequent 2018 Amendments. However, government-wide implementation of Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) has been slow to progress, largely due to the lack of technical and institutional capacity among public bodies and regulatory agencies. Inconsistent application of RIA and inadequate RIA quality has limited its usefulness as a regulatory decision-making tool in Zambia.

Building on a series of training activities delivered under the Standards Alliance Phase 1, this project helped improve the capacity of the Zambia government to achieve systematic, methodologically consistent and quality implementation of RIA through a workforce training and skills development program for government officials within public bodies and regulatory agencies that are charged with carrying out RIA. RIA is a decision-making tool used to appraise the potential impacts of new and existing regulations or policy options on the local business environment and foreign investments. The goals of the project included:

• Improve the ability of BRRA to ensure regulatory quality in Zambia;
• Improve regulatory agencies’ ability to conduct quality RIAs; and;
• Promote systematic, government-wide application of RIA among public bodies and regulatory agencies.

The training were designed to promote additional capacity building to strengthen the implementation and institutionalization of RIA across public bodies and regulatory agencies in Zambia. Eighty participants from 23 Zambian ministries participated in the event. Read the RIA Training Report.

Zambia

• Read the BBRA Final Report
• Learn more about BBRA
• about this project