The National Standards Council (NSC) has approved 6,565 new and revised standards in the past three years formulated by the Ethiopian Standards Agency (ESA). This is 65.6pc of the 10,000 standards the government planned to introduce in the five-year Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP).

Out of the total approved standards, 6,444 are voluntary, while 121 are mandatory, according to Daniel Zenebe, public relations head at the ESA.

"Out of 6,565 standards, 2,860 are new and 3,705 are revised," Daniel added.

Included in the 6,565 approved standards are foods & beverages, textiles, chemicals, cement & lime as well as petroleum, construction engineering and plastic.

The ESA was established in February 2011, when the former Quality & Standards Authority (QSA) split into four independent bodies. These were - the ESA, the Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise (ECAE), the National Metrology Institute (NMI) and the National Accreditation Office (NAO).

The QSA was established, during the former Dergue regime, in 1987, as the Ethiopian Authority for Standardisation (EAS). Only standards approved for injera and teff, out of the 7,070 standards approved so far, are indigenous.

"Injera, as the first indigenous product to be standardised, has been there for some time, but teff was added only recently, in early July this year. The standard for Injera was developed in order to export it," according to Daniel.

Although the Agency performed well formulating the standards to be introduced in the five-year plan, the failure to enforce the mandatory standards have been at the very heart of challenges faced in the sector.

Mandatory standards are backed by the law because they have implications on health, property and related issues, according to Daniel. All standards that fall outside of these characteristics are considered voluntary.

The government transferred the power of governing standards, from the ESA to the Ministry of Trade (MoT), two years ago. The ESA was thus left with only formulating the standards.

There is actually nothing we can do about enforcement, because it is not within our jurisdictions, according to Daniel.

"The Agency has chosen to use the media to disseminate the necessary information, rather than watching idly," he further commented.