31st General Assembly Event Theme
Accelerating Fair and Just Trade in Africa under the African Continental Free Trade Area through an African Coherent Regulatory Framework and Harmonised standards.
The Theme is based on the African Union 2025 theme:
Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations.
The theme was officially be launched by Heads of State and Government during the 38th AU Summit in February 2025. Theme was decided on by the Heads of State and Government at the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union held in February 2023 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In the continuing pursuit of justice and equity, the conversation about reparations has emerged as a critical and transformative dialogue that requires the collective attention and action of Africans and all people of African descent.
throughout recent history, since the GATT, 1947, Trans National Corporations (TNCs) or multinational enterprises have emerged as powerful players making the international trade to be increasingly shaped by value chains, regionally and globally (Anja Shly, UNCTAD, 2017), and to export, producers must meet the demands of the target markets in terms of quality, safety, reliability, environmental compatibility and hygiene with credible proof of compliance to the technical market requirements, required.
For the standardisation Community, the theme presents opportunity to reflect on the need to enhance the Capacity and competitiveness of African Producers, Traders and the SMEs to participate in the regional and global value chains and access markets regionally and internationally by meeting quality requirements. For Africa, effective Quality Infrastructure/Standardisation will enable African countries to exploit commercial opportunities in the Global Value Chains and to fairly compete in global markets and to justly participate in international Trading Systems by overcoming the difficulties in demonstrating compliance with stringent quality requirements and trade rules, hence the increased desirability of Effective Quality Infrastructure for the competitiveness of the African products and SMEs and as a fair and a just means or stepping stone to connecting Africa to the global market place, and which is attracting the attention of the Policy Makers, Economists and the Standardisation Community.