Norwegian Accreditation (NA) is assisting Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC). The aim is to establish an accreditation system which satisfies international requirements and the requirements of the industry and government in Pakistan.

In this project, various activities have been designed with the principal objective of PNAC achieving full membership in ILAC and IAF (world multilateral recognition agreements), and also regional agreements with Asian Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Co-operation (APLAC). Several training and assessment courses have been conducted targeted at PNAC’s assessors and staff of PNAC. The project achieved results which can be summarized as the following:

• PNAC´s quality management system now satisfies international requirements (ISO17011)
• PNAC has access to qualified personnel which includes lead and technical assessors with competence to carry through and report assessment results
• PNAC has built up competence to organize, conduct  and report inter laboratory comparison scheme for testing laboratories within most of the testing fields
• PNAC has gained competence in adopting accreditation types in new technical fields established by various sector committees’
• PNAC is able to accredit testing and calibration laboratories in Pakistan

The project is financed by the Government of Norway. The first phase of the project was completed in August 2008. The next phase of the collaboration has been initiated and a formal agreement has been signed by PNAC and NA. 

Background – international trade

A pre-project was initiated in 2002 with support from the Norwegian embassy in Pakistan. Accreditation was a new field in Pakistan at that time. Pakistan authorities held strong focus on strengthening the possibility to export their products, and especially to EU countries. On a general level, accreditation gives international recognition to the accredited enterprises and mutual acceptance of test results, certificates and inspection reports. In short; accreditation is a tool to assess  the technical competence and integrity of conformity assessment bodies such as testing and calibration laboratories, certification and inspections bodies.

The whole idea is that merchandise, products and services, produced within an accredited scheme in the country of origin, is also accepted in a recipient country. Mutual recognition is affected through multilateral agreements (MLA) and mutual recognition agreements (MRA), under which countries accept the tests, calibrations, certifications or inspections performed by accredited bodies in countries that are party to the agreements. It’s possible to say that an important aspect of free trade and international cooperation is recognition of each other's accredited schemes.

Once a national accreditation body is approved through a long process of peer evaluation, it is included in an international agreement on mutual recognition of laboratory tests, certifications and inspections. The international agreements are organised by ILAC for laboratories and by the IAF for certifications bodies. The international agreements on inspections are organised jointly by ILAC and IAF.

For instance, Norwegian Accreditation is a signatory of the worldwide agreements for the mutual recognition. This is important for Norwegian enterprises as well, because accreditation means an easier access to export markets because product requirements can be met in Norway and are valid in most countries worldwide.

Accreditations in Pakistan

Besides assisting PNAC with competence building, we have also accredited 12 organizations with altogether 21 laboratories in Pakistan. 19 of these laboratories are financed by UNIDO while 2 of these are self-financed.