Accreditation standards: Kenya will struggle to sell what rest of the world cannot trust

Kenya Accreditation Service CEO Dr Walter Ongeti.

Kenya earned Sh1.119 trillion from exports in 2025, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Economic Survey 2026.

Behind every shilling sits a test result, calibration or inspection report that someone had to believe. We celebrate the shipment but rarely ask the question that decides whether it is accepted: who checked the people doing the checking?

That is what accreditation answers. It is an independent verdict on whether a laboratory, certification body, or inspection body is competent to do what it claims.

At Kenya National Accreditation Services (KENAS), Kenya's national accreditation body, we assess testing, calibration and medical laboratories, certification bodies, and inspection and verification bodies. Not a stamp. Not a formality. Accreditation is the trust infrastructure of our economy, which remains largely invisible until it fails.

Aflatoxin has no smell, colour or taste. In a peer-reviewed study of 597 maize meal samples from ten counties, 14.4 per cent exceeded the 10 parts-per-billion safety limit. Only a laboratory can tell a family, a miller or an exporter which side of the line their food falls on.

So, who verifies the laboratory? A false pass puts poison on a plate. A false fail destroys a farmer's harvest. Equipment alone does not make a result reliable; competence does. That is what accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 tests, and what we keep testing after the certificate is issued.

In a hospital, a laboratory result is a decision waiting to happen. It tells a clinician whether to treat, what to treat, and when to stop. A wrong result means wrong, late or no treatment, and patients cannot see inside the lab to check.

Accreditation to ISO 15189:2022 turns blind trust into earned trust by assessing staff competence, validated methods, and quality controls. At Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi, CDC Kenya reports that the share of tests meeting accreditation standards rose from five per cent to 69 per cent after a laboratory quality programme, giving patients more accurate and trusted results.

As Kenya pushes towards Universal Health Coverage, access without reliable diagnostics is a hollow promise.

Concrete does not negotiate. The National Construction Authority (NCA) reports that 86 buildings collapsed between 2009 and 2019, with an estimated 200 lives lost.

A 2018 National Building Inspectorate audit of 14,895 buildings found 4.8 per cent very dangerous and 72.3 per cent unsafe.

Poor workmanship and substandard materials are repeatedly blamed, and two in three collapses came after completion, when people had already moved in.

Every failure begins with an unanswered question. Was the concrete strong enough? Was the steel what the supplier claimed? Was the inspector competent?

Accredited laboratories prove materials meet specifications. Accredited inspection bodies verify that what is built matches what was designed.

Accreditation cannot lay a single brick, but it can tell you whether the materials are fit to carry the load. Without it, "approved" is just a word.

Exporters live or die by whether buyers accept their evidence. The KNBS Economic Survey 2026 shows exports to the East African Community reached Sh351.2 billion in 2025, roughly a third of the total.

The 2025 survey put horticulture at Sh203.6 billion and tea at Sh189.1 billion in 2024, together more than Sh390 billion.

One rejected consignment costs more than money; it costs the buyer's confidence.

International recognition changes the maths. Since 2017, KENAS has been a signatory to the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) recognition arrangements, alongside the African Accreditation Cooperation (AFRAC) arrangement, and the new Global Accreditation Cooperation now unites that framework worldwide. Accredited once, accepted everywhere: fewer repeat tests, fewer border delays. Under the African Continental Free Trade Area, no compliant producer should be shut out for lack of credible evidence.

Too many businesses see accreditation as one more bill.

Price the alternative, and you get duplicated tests, rejected shipments, rework, recalls, and lost buyers. For a small business, an accredited laboratory or certifier is a shortcut into formal supply chains, proving the quality a young firm could otherwise only claim. Accreditation is not a privilege of big companies. It is a ladder for small ones.

First, businesses should make accreditation a purchasing criterion. Before paying for a test, inspection or certificate, ask whether the provider is KENAS-accredited, for which scope, and check the public directory on our website.

Second, regulators and public buyers should specify accredited results wherever safety is at stake, from food and water to building materials and diagnostics.

Third, consumers, farmers, patients and homebuyers should simply ask the question. Quality improves fastest when those paying for it expect proof.

Safe food, reliable diagnoses, sound buildings and competitive exports rest on one foundation: information people can believe.

The value of accreditation is ultimately confidence. We currently accredit 314 conformity assessment bodies across various sectors in the economy, and our vision is an accreditation-driven economy. Smart decisions need information you can trust. Quality is not a technical detail. It is how Kenya earns the right to be believed.

The writer is the Chief Executive Officer, Kenya Accreditation Service (KENAS)