ARAC UNIDO

Sweden´s goal has been to provide long-term technical assistance through UNIDO to improve the overall quality infrastructure system in the MENA-region with the aim to expand regional and global trade. From Sweden´s perspective UNIDO has successfully supported ARAC to have long-term capacity as an internationally recognised body within accreditation to now be established as an independent legal entity that is financially and technically sustainable. ARAC was internationally recognised for the first time back in 2017 and in this current phase from 2018, it was internationally approved again, which we learned from UNIDO is actually more challenging- to keep the international recognition by ILAC that is valid for five years at the time. It is a true milestone that ARAC is now established as a legal independent entity as recognised by the League of Arab States to be THE accreditation body of the MENA-region- a regional accreditation body that is approved by the global accreditation body ILAC and with that step internationally recognised at the same level as other regional bodies, such as for example the European accreditation body. The Embassy see concrete results from our support and cooperation with UNIDO in relation to ARAC over time. Through our partnership, industries and end consumers in the MENA region have access to internationally recognised conformity assessment services such as testing, certification and inspection that are reliable, affordable and more easily accessible to companies. All crucial to increase regional and global trade for MENA-countries. The program has achieved several results such as: i) developed technical capacity in regional accreditation of products and services for ARAC, country members and food laboratories; and ii) international recognition of ARAC to accredit national conformity bodies (CABs). Also, the program supported for example Covid-19 testing response regionwide (quality testing) and contributed to reduce gender inequality and improved health and environment. The establishment of ARAC must be seen as one of our flagship projects within our trade portfolio since it has led to concrete results and has a truly regional dimension in terms of contributing to regional trade and regional collaboration between countries. Moreover, the recent support to the SMEs directly in terms of supporting 150 food producing SMEs in six countries to establish food safety systems to work ith local and regional conformity assessment services and to have exposure to export markets, B2B-matchmaking, business connections etc. However, it should be addded that the SME-component was added as part of a cost-extension with a very short time-frame. The intention at that point in time back in 2021 was for the SME-component to be a pilot and feed into a new contribution by time. However, since the economic development portfolio already had many SME-focused contributions and ARAC had recevied support over ten years from the Swedish development cooperation. The final report, including 2023 and until March 2024, is due to the no-cost extension due at the end of September 2024. However, below follows some updates re the results from 2023. The overall analysis of the contribution will be conducted in the Completion Memo. In 2023 ARAC first received membership contributions following successful registration of a bank account. It is determined that this last phase of support further strengthened, professionalized and increased ARACs strong likelihood of sustainability even further. Some examples of results/activities - UNIDO continued to provide technical backstopping and support to ARAC, especially with regards to achieving the technical standards required to support non-MLA signatories pursue full membership. Under this output the project specifically supported 4 ARAC members to become ARAC Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) signatories. These included (LIBAC/Libya, PALAC/Palestine and SEMAC/Morocco). - Full technical support program for Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Morocco was drawn up with the intention to improve their capacities and performance predominately in the requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies, management systems etc. - A database established on national conformity accreditation bodies, CABs, and also on the gaps in the region. It is determined this database now represents a basis for the ARAC to promote CABs services in different sectors. - Linked selected SMEs in the food industry to ARAC accredited CABs with increased focus on accreditation bodies updating their validation certificates. Participation of more than 200 food laboratories in the region to enhance capacity to support food laboratories to meet international standards. - A key output of this phase of the project was the UNIDO Value Chain Prioritization Report for the food sub sectors in the Arab States. The report illustrates a comprehensive selection criteria om SMEs including economic, environmental, social and institutional criteria. It also specifically assesses the level of inclusion of women. It focuses on a wide range of food related value chains in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. - Fruits and vegetables, especially dates, olive products, breads pastries and confectionaries meat products and nuts and cheeses were the products investigated. A total of 17 agro-food products were eventually selected from among 945 products. The result of the report was the eventual selection of six countries and the identification of 2-3 products from each country that were seen to have the most untapped resource potential food products for support. Conformity assessment bodies were active in all these countries and industries and the project intention was to get them to expand their scope of services to respond to the need of their SMEs. - It was reported that the project focused on SMEs that had lower starting capacity and that with the pilot approach incorporating only 150 SMEs in 6 countries a larger impact on intraregional trade would be unlikely to be achieved in the short term. - One of the most effective areas of support from the perspective of the supported SMEs was the linkages UNIDO facilitated with clients through attendance at trade fairs and the B2B matchmaking process.

Syftet med projektet är att underlätta regional handel och integration inom MENA-regionen. Detta genom att stödja implementeringen av internationella överenskommelser och standarder inom ackrediteringsområdet för att på så sätt underlätta för bland annat den privata sektorn och skapa förbättrade förutsättningar för internationell handel. Projektet förväntas även innebära säkrare produkter och system vilket kan få positiva effekter på miljön och skyddet för konsumenter i regionen genom exempelvis säkrare livsmedel.