Technical Committees

What is a Technical Committee?

A Technical Committee is a team of experts responsible for the development and drafting of standards. The Composition of Technical Committees is dependent on the subject of discussion however, there should be a balance between experts, government regulators, industry, academia and researchers, civil society as well as consumer representatives.

The standards that are finalised at the Technical Committee level are referred to as Final Draft Uganda Standards (FDUS). These FDUS are presented to the UNBS board, the National Standards Council (NSC), who are mandated to approve and declare them as Uganda Standards (US) at which point, the standards are available for use.

Some of the Uganda Standards are recommended for compulsory application and this is approved by the Minister responsible for Trade and Industry on recommendation of the UNBS NSC.  

How to become a TC member

The team of experts that constitutes a Technical Committee includes representation from the Industry, Regulators, Academia and researchers, Trade associations and the Consumers among others.

To develop a Technical Committee, UNBS invites experts from the public through notice using various means such as Newspapers, the UNBS Website and social media platforms, from which interested parties apply for consideration. Key institutions like regulators are individually written to, to nominate appropriate officials.

The successful candidates are then appointed by UNBS to become TC members based on their competence within the TC they are to work with. 

Once appointed, the TC members select their own Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson, and the UNBS Executive Director authorises their appointment through appointment letters. TC members are not employees of UNBS but are however facilitated with a small allowance for participation in the TC meetings.

UNBS staff serve as secretaries to the different TCs. This means that UNBS doesn’t develop standards on its own, but facilitates the experts in the Technical Committee in a particular area for which a standard is being developed. The TC Secretary also ensures due process is followed in standards development.

UNBS has constituted eighty seven (87) Technical Committees to undertake the development of Uganda standards in various sectors.

See the full list of Technical Committees in the attachment below;