Quality and Standards: Game-changers for the post-COVID 19 recovery of African economies?

In the framework of UNIDO – African Union joint celebration Africa Industrialization Week 2020, the UNIDO Brussels Office held a webinar on “Quality & Standards in the context of post-Covid recovery of African economies” on 19 November 2020. It offered a multi-stakeholder platform where the international community of quality infrastructure governance bodies and practitioners from African Organizations, the European Union and UNIDO discussed the role of quality institutions and services for sustainable and inclusive industrialization of Africa.

This stimulating discussion on the theme “Inclusive and sustainable industrialization in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and COVID-19 era” represented a follow-up of the International Quality Infrastructure Forum held in April 2019 in Brussels, which focused on the contribution of quality infrastructure to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and to implement the AfCFTA. Based on the conclusions of this forum, the webinar continued the discussion in the context of COVID-19 by bringing together a panel of diverse experts in this domain. 

The session was moderated by Patrick Gilabert, Head of the UNIDO Liaison Office in Brussels, and introduced by Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento, Managing Director of the UNIDO’s Directorate of Digitalization, Technology and Agri-Business, who stated that standards and quality in the framework of AfCFTA, and strong partnerships and investments are key to ensure Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development (ISID) in Africa and achieve the SDGs for people, planet and prosperity. He also highlighted that “digitalization will be an integral part of the new normal”.

More information and the recording of the webinar are available here.

For more information contact Patrick Jean Gilabert (P.Gilabert [at] unido.org (P[dot]Gilabert[at]unido[dot]org))

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