ISO hold a training seminar in Africa on consumer participation in standardization
Date: 31 August- 1 September 2006
Location: Gaborone, Botswana
The ISO Committee on Consumer policy (COPOLCO) and the ISO Committee on Developing Country matters (DEVCO) have jointly organized a training seminar to enhance consumer participation in standards development. The Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) hosted this event, which brought together representatives of National Standard Bodies and consumer associations from ISO members in sub-Saharan Africa to explore ways to work more effectively together.
This event is following similar training which have already taken place in Bangkok, Cairo, Prague, Toronto and Kuala Lumpur from 2003. All have used an interactive dialogue method which encourages participants to develop concepts presented by experts within small group discussions.
One main objective has been to help NSB's and consumer associations to work together more effectively in order to ensure that consumers' priorities are included in standards, and standardization programmes. Another was to raise consumer representatives' awareness of the value of standards and specific ways to become more involved in their development.
The event has set out basic principles of standardization, and how consumers can help define basic criteria that standards for products and services should address from a consumer's point of view. Specific case studies have be presented, and participants had the opportunity to test the theory in small group activities to define consumer priorities for a product or service of their choice.
Flux RSS
