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‘RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH MAY EXHAUST RESOURCES’

09/06/2022 08:07:00 Mhlengi Magongo

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MBABANE – Eswatini will today be joining the world in commemorating the World Accreditation Day.

This was mentioned by the Southern African Development Community Accreditation Service (SADCAS) Regulatory and Quality Infrastructure officer Phindile Dlamini yesterday.
Dlamini said the Theme for this year is,’’Accreditation, sustainability in economic Growth and the environment. She said the theme highlights how accreditation supports nine of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through the provision of a trusted platform for defining, developing and verifying requirements for products and services while helping to ensure and demonstrate that products and services meet specified requirements.

Dlamini said it could also be through environmental protection performance, helping manage climate change, developing the circular economy or providing tools to measure performance. “Accreditation and conformity assessment are constantly reviewing and evolving to ensure that the right tools are available to support the SDG both now and moving forward,” she said. The officer also mentioned that the prioritisation of sustainability in economic growth and the environment is echoed in the SADC Vision 2050, which was approved during the 40th SADC Summit held in August 2021.

She said among other objectives it strives for an industrialised regional economy that sustainably exploits its natural resources. Industrialisation was one of the main drivers of economic growth and sustainable development. Dlamini added that manufactures needed to ensure products were of consistent high quality, comply with technical regulations and standards, and meet specifications. She said accreditation enabled consumers, suppliers, purchasers and regulators to have confidence that products placed on the market were safe and meet the manufacturers claims made about them.

“Rapid economic growth may exhaust resources and create environmental problems for future generations, including the depletion of natural resources, global warming and to support sustainable economic growth, countries worldwide were shifting from a linear to a circular economy,” she said. The officer mentioned that a circular economy disconnects economic activity from the consumption of finite resources by focusing on repair, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling, thus reducing the production of waste and the use of resources.
She said Accreditation bolsters regulations that implement principles of circular economy by assessing and verifying the claims of conforming companies and organisations. “World Accreditation Day 2022 enables the International Accreditation Forum, the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation and their members to highlight how accreditation is delivering sustainability in economic development and the environment,” she said.