Standards and National Quality Systems that matter for competitiveness

Standards and National Quality Systems that matter for competitiveness

There are two perspectives on quality issues: One is from the firms side which looks mainly to standards and certifications to comply with requirement of demanding clients and/ or get access to more lucrative markets. On the other side we have service providers and support institutions of the so called National Quality System (NQS) or Quality Infrastructure (QI). These technical terms refer to a specialized system of bodies in charge of quality assurance and conformity assessment. In former times the acronym MSTQ (Metrology, Standards, Testing and Quality Assurance) was used. These bodies focus on precise measurement and the formal accreditation of certification bodies, laboratories and inspection bodies. The interest of firms in being competitive is often beyond the horizon of responsible of QI bodies.

Even as the raison d'être (reason to be) of a National Quality System (another synonym for QI) is to support firms and protect consumers; their services are mainly used by larger, export oriented companies. This is even more truth in developing countries where the main part of the economy is built by micro and small firms which are working for the local market and where many of them are lacking formalization. Hence, we are seeing nearly only representatives of large firms and their business associations and chambers, in the governmental bodies of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs), Accreditation Bodies or Committees for Standard development. The services of QI bodies are consequently orientated to the needs of the larger, international companies.

The exclusion of large part of the developing economies form QI services is bad for local firms and consumers: Even if the developing countries are opening their markets, SMEs do rarely take this business opportunity, because of the quality requirements of the trade partner. The latter can be a country or a large buyer with its own quality requirements; in both case we find a specific expression of Non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs). Therefore these small firms are often losing competitiveness against larger firms of their country and foreign companies. As many local firms do not comply with quality requirements, also local consumers who buy their products and services are also discriminated. All in all it is a vicious cycle.

How to break this negative dynamic? Mesopartner is working to connect both worlds: We are facilitating Private Sector Development (PSD) like clusters and value chain and at the same time advising QI bodies to be more user-orientated. As the SME sector of developing countries is lacking voice and resources the support of development agencies is very important. In this context the Technical Cooperation of the German Metrology Institute (acronym in German PTB) is a key client which enables our consultancy firm to work directly with QI bodies in developing countries. This enables us also to sensitize other donors active the promotion of value chains or clusters to bring in the issue of quality services and standards more prominent into their programs and projects.

PTBs CALIDENA methodology, co-developed by Mesopartner, is a practically approach to enhance the collaboration of large and small firms in developing countries and QI bodies. It is pragmatic, participatory and action-orientated. The aim is to sensitize firms in developing countries for upgrading and competitive advantages by complying with national and international standards, and to help the QI bodies to adapt their services to the need of the specific needs of the firms in developing countries.

How development practitioners can engage with the process? Practitioners active in private sector development, especially in value chain and cluster projects, are invited by Mesopartner to broaden their perspective and share experience how to upgrade the broader system of quality infrastructure beyond specific interventions in specific industries and locations. Representatives of QI bodies are also invited to contribute to the exchange how to make quality services more customer-orientated. The proposal of Mesopartner – in closed cooperation with the Technical Development Unit of PTB – is to create and consolidate knowledge and practical methodologies around the support of QI to PSD.