ARSO Strategic Plan 2022 to 2027

ARS Strategic Plan

ARSO Strategic Plan

Goals and Strategic Objectives

Focus on developing African Standards (ARS) and conformity assessment procedures that align to Africa’s needs and industrialization with due consideration of SDGs, amongst other global challenges.
Strengthen and support participation of all key stakeholders in the development/harmonisation of standards including their participation in ARSO CACO and ARSO COCO.
Facilitate robust education about standards programme and awareness-raising initiatives to inculcate a quality culture in Africa.
Focus on developing African Standards (ARS) and conformity assessment procedures that support the technological needs of 4IR to ensure harmony and smooth integration of African systems and innovations.

Facilitate robust education about standardisation and create awareness-raising initiatives to inculcate a quality culture in Africa.
Support Africa’s innovation and technology needs in relation to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to ensure harmony and smooth integration of African systems through standards and conformity assessment schemes and innovation.

Create awareness on the Africa Quality Policy (AQP) in collaboration with other PAQI institutions and advocate to members to align their national quality policies to the AQP.

Actively lobby for adoption and implementation of ARS including referencing them in technical regulations/trade Directives under the AfCFTA.
Facilitate information-sharing and encourage case studies that demonstrate the value of ARS amongst Member Countries.
Strengthen and actively promote ARSO DISNET as an integrated African trade web-portal to enhance access to information on standards and technical regulations by all stakeholders – linking with WTO/TBT National Enquiry Points and other relevant trade information portals.

Develop internal capacity and enhance Central Secretariat’s efficiency through automation of processes and systems to enable better support for ARSO Technical Committees and Members.
Strengthen internal oversight and monitoring systems to ensure adherence with ASHAM and other ARSO policies to ensure credible standards harmonisation/development.
Create an electronic dashboard that will include the programmes of work of ARSO, RECs and NSBs to encourage collaboration and avoid duplication.
Attain permanent ARSO offices.

Capacity building for ARSO national desk officers, TC chairpersons/secretaries and stakeholders to enable their full engagement in ARSO and in international standardisation work.
Annual networking sessions for ARSO desk officers, TC chairpersons and secretaries to share experiences and ideas on strengthening ARSO.
Repackage NSB roles and responsibilities to enable full participation and ownership of ARSO activities.

Profiling ARSO as a champion for African interests in international standardisation fora such as ISO, IEC, etc.
Build capacity and develop a mechanism for proposing ARS as international standards and strengthen competent African participation in international standards development.
Build a cohort of influential African experts to participate internationally, by creating a forum for experience-sharing by African NSBs with experience as members of international governance committees, TC chairpersonships/secretariats.

Value creation to inspire continuous payment of membership fees.
Create new revenue generation streams consisting of royalties from sales of ARS by ARSO members and levies from conformity assessment schemes, to support new initiatives such as Made in Africa.
Develop and implement a strategy and governance principles for raising and dissemination of external funding.
In line with the AfCFTA Agreement, encourage all AU Members to be members of ARSO and pay membership fees accordingly.

Develop, maintain and implement a stakeholder engagement strategy to ensure relevance to stakeholder needs.
Forge partnerships with strategic organisations to pursue the mandate of ARSO.