NSI, MIT beneficiaries of EU’s first Twinning project in Southern Africa

The Namibia Standards Institution (NSI) and the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade (MIT) are the primary beneficiaries of Southern Africa's first European Union (EU) funded twinning project. The project, titled "Support to the Namibian Standards Institution," began on 1 February 2022 with the objective of boosting the NSI's capacity to carry out its mandate, increasing Namibia's participation in international trade agreements, addressing technical trade barriers, and enhancing economic growth.

Twining is a concept developed by the EU to foster institutional collaboration between public administrations in EU Member States and beneficiary or partner countries. Through peer-to-peer activities, twinning projects bring together public sector experience from the EU Member States and recipient countries to deliver concrete obligatory operational results. The Swedish and German public administrations have formed a consortium of eight implementing partners for this twinning project. The consortia are the Swedish National Board of Trade (NBT), the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), the Swedish Institute for Standards (SIS), the German Institute for Standardization (DIN), the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL), the Swedish Board for Accreditation and Conformity Assessment (SWEDAC), the German Accreditation Body (DAkkS), and the German National Metrology Institute (PTB).

The Twinning project is a component of the larger EU-funded project "Support to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) Implementation Plan in Namibia" The duration of the twinning project is 24 months and is to the tune of 1.6 Million EUROs.

Ms Anna Sjögren, the Resident Twinning Advisor (RTA), can be contacted for additional information about this project via email at [email protected]