On Thursday, June 6, an awareness-raising session organized by the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO) in collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB) was held. On the occasion, stakeholders in the agricultural sector in Côte d'Ivoire on the importance of adopting and using harmonized African standards in order to improve the quality and safety of their agricultural products

The Secretary General of ARSO, Dr. Hermogène Nsengimana announced that the objective of the awareness-raising organized on Thursday is to get stakeholders to understand that in addition to national standards, there are African standards to improve and increase their visibility in accessing the Continental Free Trade Area market. African (AfCFTA). The two-day training aimed to strengthen the capacities of standardization institutions for micro, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It was based on several different sessions. The first on “the preparation of SMEs in the context of free trade and how the implementation of harmonized African standards can facilitate intra-African trade” and the second on “the introduction of harmonized standards”. Session 3 addressed “harmonized standards for agricultural products”, session 4 dealt with the “sharing of experiences of SMEs”, session 5 focused on the “Legal framework for the management of standards and quality infrastructure”, and the sixth and final session dealt with the “regulatory framework and compliance”.