For more information on Madagascar Regulatory Department contact details, please see the following links:
4.1 Madagascar Government Contact List
4.3 Madagascar Laboratory and Quality Testing Companies Contact List
Madagascar Bureau of Standards (Bureau des normes de Madagascar)
The Madagascar Bureau of Standards (BNM), is the National Standardization Organization, responsible for the implementation of the national policy on standardization and quality, as defined by the Government and the Ministry of Technical Supervision. It is placed under the technical supervision of the Ministry of Trade and under the financial and budgetary supervision of the Ministry of Finance and Budget.
The office is responsible for:
- Supporting the coordination of work standardization , developing, revising and centralizing national standards,
- To submit to the agreement of the Ministry in charge of trade and the National Council of Standardization the final texts for their adoption and promulgation,
- Promote the application of standards,
- Acquire and manage any normative documentation,
- Disseminate standards and any normative information,
- Promote approaches to quality assurance of products, goods and services.
- Provide training on standardization and related activities,
- Represent Madagascar to regional standardization bodies such as: ARSO or ORAN, SADC STAN, COMESA STAN,
- Represent Madagascar to international standardization bodies such as ISO, IEC,
- Certify, at the request of the producer or service provider, compliance with standards,
- Manage the national conformity mark,
- Coordinate with the professional organizations concerned the management of collective conformity marks such as Label and AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée),
- Manage laboratories affiliated with the Bureau of Standards of Madagascar.
Customs
Under the authority of the Minister of Finance and Budget, the General Directorate of Customs is responsible for the design and implementation of the Government's customs policy.
The main functions of the Malagasy customs administration are:
- To meet government objectives in terms of revenue collection,
- To promote economic growth by facilitating legitimate trade,
- To protect citizens and the environment by fighting illicit trafficking,
- Secure the international supply chain.
Various regulatory departments and quality control agencies
All sectors of activity in Madagascar are attached to a ministry and are under the regulation and control of a specific agency.
- Food:
Under the regulation of three ministries (health, commerce and agriculture), the ACSQDA (Agence de Controle de la Securité sanitaire et de la Qualité des Denrées Alimentaire) should control all the foodstuffs before they are placed on the market.
This Agency, in collaboration with other institutions, has an analysis laboratory and is in charge of:
- making toxicological expertise,
- monitoring food-borne diseases,
- coordinate the quality control activities mandated by laboratories for certification for human consumption.
- Water:
Even if the Jirama (national water supplier) has its own laboratory, the law oblige them to contract a private actor to do a counter-expertise each time there is a control. The contract is renewed every year after a call for tender. From several years, the Pasteur institute has been the agency doing these controls.
In the private sector teh company BushProof, specialized in the water supply and sanitation sector, has a laboratory as well for monitoring and analyzing water quality.
- Medicines:
The Pharmaceutical Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Medicines Agency of Madagascar (AGMED), part of the Ministry of Health, is the main agency in charge of regulating and controlling the quality of medical and pharmaceutical products in the public and private sectors.
With a laboratory, the agency's main roles are:
- Inspect pharmaceutical activities throughout the national territory
- To control the quality of the pharmaceutical products to be marketed in Madagascar.
- Biological:
- The Clinical Biology Center (CBC) attached to the Pasteur Institute of Madagascar, is a multidisciplinary biomedical analysis laboratory serving the public.
- The Food and Environmental Hygiene Laboratory (LHAE): is another laboratory within the Pasteur Institute in Madagascar, whose diagnostic activities focus on health risks monitoring associated with food, water and the environment.
- CMM Labo : a private clinical specialized in biomedical analysis,
- Hydrocarbon:
All the activities of the oil sector on a national scale, are under the regulation of OMH (Office Malgache des Hydrocarbures). In principle, the reception of all imported petroleum products must have the prior approval of the OMH; its main role is to control theoretically (certificate of origin or quality) and practically (sample analysis) the quality of all import products before they are landed or put into consumption.
OMH has its own laboratory but its capabilities in terms of types of analyzes are limited.
For the sampling and analysis of products, the Office is in collaboration with three national laboratories:
- the Toamasina GRT laboratory
- the LPSA laboratory in Alarobia
- the Saybolt laboratory in Ivato
