Quality Infrastructure: National Systems and International Context

Quality infrastructure (QI) ensures quality, safety, health, and environmental protection. The main components are standardisation, metrology, accreditation, conformity assessment and market surveillance. QI’s prehistory goes back to the Indus civilisation with its centralised system for weights and measures during the Bronze Age. Advanced civilisations in Egypt, China and Mexico already had sophisticated measures and standards. Modern QI began with the Industrial Revolution in England and spread across the globe via Western Europe and the United States. In the Southern Hemisphere, the development of QI started in the second half of the twentieth century. QI supports a barrier-free global trade. The mutual recognition of accreditations generates confidence between trade partners. QI bodies are committed to Sustainable Development Goals. The QI in developing countries benefits from international cooperation. Global organisations provide the platform for exchanging and developing a worldwide QI. Governments of the global South recognise the necessity of QI to enhance their economy.