Setting up a Quality Infrastructure System is one of the most positive and practical steps that a developing nation can take on the path forward to developing a thriving economy as a basis for prosperity, health and well-being.
A Quality Infrastructure is a system contributing to governmental policy objectives in areas including industrial development, trade competitiveness in global markets, efficient use of natural and human resources, food safety, health, the environment and climate change. It offers a complete package addressing the needs of the nation’s citizens, of customers and consumers, and of enterprises and other organizations that offer them products and services. The Quality Infrastructure System covers essential aspects such as policy, institutions, service providers, and the value-adding use of international standards and conformity assessment procedures.
A Quality Infrastructure System (QIS) is a combination of initiatives, institutions, organizations, activities and people. It includes a national quality policy and institutions to implement it, a regulatory framework, quality service providers, enterprises, customers and consumers (who include citizens as “consumers” of government services).
(Credit: UNIDO UNIDO_Quality_system_0.pdf)
The benefits of QI
The QIS provides benefits to everyone in the supply and demand chain. This includes the consumer, manufacturer and the supplier.
Consumers benefit because the QIS provides confidence that the products and services they purchase are fit for their purpose.
Manufacturers and suppliers benefit because the QIS promotes their use of international standards to ensure that their products and services meet state-of¬-the-art requirements, and that their business processes are modelled on management system standards recognized worldwide.
Regulators benefit because the QIS helps them to identify and specify the standards and conformity assessment processes they can use to ensure that public interest requirements, such as health, safety and environmental, are being met. The regulator will often make conformity assessment obligatory in these fields and may prohibit the sale of nonconforming products and services.
The government benefits because the QIS puts at its disposal a system for stimulating the economy, increasing the competitiveness of its industry on global markets, using resources efficiently, sharing technological know-how, tackling environmental and climate-related challenges, and for fulfilling its responsibilities for public health and safety, including food safety.
