The Gambia Standards Bureau joined the global standardization community to celebrate World Standards Day 2024. The day has been set aside to pay tribute to the thousands of experts worldwide who collaborate within the International and National Standards setting organizations to develop standards. These standards serve to facilitate trade, safeguard health and safety, spread knowledge and disseminate technological advances. As in each year, the theme of the World Standards Day 2024 is ‘’SHARED VISION FOR A BETTER WORLD. SPOTLIGHT ON SDG 9 focuses on building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation.

During this year’s celebration, The Gambia Standards Bureau had lined up series of sensitization activities geared towards raising public awareness of standardization matters. 

The sensitization team targeted mainly traders in “lumos” and markets, local food processors as well as the general public. As “lumos” and markets are public meeting points, the caravan crew promoted the need for general cleanliness among food handlers particularly restaurants owners. However, traders were given the opportunity to share their opinions about the visits. Most of the speakers thanked the Bureau for this initiative saying is a cause in the right direction that is geared towards benefiting the general public. They also lamented the poor state of some food stuff in the markets such as uncovered foods, selling of expired foods, selling of sick animals, slaughtering of recently injected animals, poor state of cooked meat and none adherence to general principles of good hygienic practices during food preparation.

The team also visited food processors in all the regions where they were sensitized on Good Hygienic Practices, packaging and labelling of food products as per the requirements of the national packaging and labelling standards. Participants applauded the Bureau for enriching their knowledge and understanding on packaging and labelling as well as on Good Hygienic practices which according to them will improve their businesses.

The team also engaged the general public through series of live radio sensitization programs at community radio stations across all the regions in the country.

The main objectives of the sensitization tour were;

• to raise public awareness on TGSB’s mandate;
• to promote TGSB services;
• improve local food processors’ knowledge on packaging and labelling;
• to promote Good Hygienic Practices among food handlers in public spaces including “lumos” and markets.

Activities

The main activities conducted during this tour was visiting the biggest “lumos” (Farafenni,Wassu, Sareh Bojo and Bureng) , the multi-purpose centres (MPCs) and community radios in each of the 5 regions. The tour started in North Bank Region (NBR), then proceeded to Central River Region (CRR), Upper River Region (URR), Lower River Region (LRR) and concluded in West Coast Region (WCR).