Develop capacity of East African producers and national standards authorities to use and meet new bamboo products/processes technical guiedlines

ICBR staff and NEN member Arjan van der Vegte of Moso International will conduct regional consultations/training with identified stakeholders to introduce the technical guidelines, enabling them to become national trainers. The consultations will provide advice to national standards authorities on how to adopt bamboo standards and monitor compliance, as well as help to raise awareness among producers about the standard requirements of the EU for major bamboo-traded products. In addition to regional consultation and training, as part of MoFCOM supported training courses, participants from East Africa will also be given the opportunity to visit bamboo factories in China, where ICBR and Moso International will be able to raise awareness about requirements for standards compliance and quality control. Based on need and agreement of between parties, the Dutch Standards Agency, NEN, through a twinning agreement, may also support up to one East African beneficiary country to take part in ISO Technical Committee 296 on Bamboo and Rattan. Under this activity, 50 East Africans from standards authorities and larger SMEs consulted and trained on new technical guidelines for bamboo products/processes from month 21-36, with one MoFCOM training held in East African and one in China. Overall two countries - Kenya and Uganda become a member of ISO TC 296. Three workshops with participation of 70 East African standard authorities and stakeholder organised.