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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

CROSQ stakeholder dialogues


The CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) is preparing for a stronger Caribbean position in the global trade. By consulting its stakeholders, the National Standards Bodies and Business Support Organizations, CROSQ has done a needs assessment and prepared a 5-year CROSQ Action Plan 2011 - 2015 "Strengthening the Caribbean cooperation towards standards and quality". In two workshops CROSQ with the support (technical and financial) of Pro€Invest, initiated 2009 a capacity building technical assistance project to identify current and future institutional needs of CROSQ and its stakeholders. The output from the needs study has enabled CROSQ to develop a comprehensive Action plan for the years 2011-2015. As part of this project, key stakeholders to CROSQ were invited to take part in two workshops where needs were identified and actions to satisfy the needs were further developed. The format of the Stakeholder dialogues was tailored to encourage sharing of views and experience. As input to the dialogue, a preliminary needs analysis was presented to stimulate contributions from the participants. The outcome of the first workshop was a consensus view on the most urgent needs and their priority. These were grouped in the following five categories in priority order

* Institutional capacity building
* Review of the legal framework
* Mutual awareness building
* Sustainable management and Networking
* Adaptation to Innovation and Technology


The second workshop Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 February 2010 agreed on the actions which need to be taken to strengthen CROSQ and its members. A consolidated Action plan was presented and agreed as an outcome of the workshop.