Project “National Quality Infrastructure in Guatemala”
In 1998 was subscribed a technical cooperation contract between the Ministry of Economy of Guatemala and the Sweden Government through the Swedish Agency for Accreditation and Conformity Assessment –SWEDAC-. This project was called "National Quality Infrastructure in Guatemala". The aim of this project is to support Guatemala in the establishment and strengthening of the national standardization body, the building up of the national accreditation body, testing and calibration laboratories and inspection bodies.
On September 2000, the assistance for the national accreditation body building up began, that was the starting up for the accreditation staff training and for the document preparation regarding quality and assessment system which is a requirement for an accreditation body according to the international standards
Since then, Guatemala have been visited by experts from SWEDAC with the purpose of support the accreditation staff and evaluate the work that have been done, with a positive result. Besides, the accreditation staff and technical assessors have been trained both national and international level, through visiting others accreditation bodies, e.g. Sweden, Spain, Lithuania in order to get know-how and observe their functioning, and to be part of the follow-up assessments in laboratories accredited by SWEDAC, learning in the field.
In this way, Guatemala have given an important step in this international conformity assessment world and since May 2002, the Guatemalan Accreditation Body have been established as a legal entity.
Project “Accreditation and Environmental Management at Central American” (AGACE)
The main strategic lines of the project are supporting of :
Accreditation Bodies
Testing Laboratories
Companies
Within the framework of the project, was established the Central American Forum. The aim of this forum is to have a close cooperation among the accreditation bodies of the Central American region:
