Consumer Rights Day and participation in standardisation
March 15 is World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD), an occasion set aside throughout the world for creating awareness regarding the importance of consumers. It has become necessary to examine the role of the consumer towards ensuring that goods and services offered for sale meet the desired quality and consumer satisfaction.
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Quality consciousness on the part of producers or manufacturers does not come by chance but through the exertion of pressure from the consumer force as a unified group to influence the needed or desired direction towards the attainment of quality products for consumer satisfaction and well-being.
One essential area that requires active consumer involvement as far as production of goods and services is concerned is standardisation. Consumer participation in standardisation is very essential because it ensures consumer confidence and relevance of the standards. When consumes are involved in standardisation, they tend to understand standards-related issues better resulting in greater confidence and also emphasising that only standards relating to the interests of consumers are developed and promoted.
Participation
The role of consumers is relevant both at the technical and policy levels. At the technical level, consumers have the right and the resources to contribute to the development of standards in the same way as other stakeholders. Similarly, the involvement of consumers in relevant activities which influence standards development has positive bearing within and outside national standards bodies.
To put it more forcefully, since the consumer is always at the receiving end of the production of goods and services, participation in standardisation ought to be seen as a right but not a privilege. If such participation is a right, then it must be linked to WCRD which falls on March 15 every year. For this reason, consumers in Ghana ought to be committed to the process of active participation in the process of standardisation and team up with the Ghana Standards Authority in the development of standards through its technical committees set up for the purpose.
WCRD is celebrated each year to mark the historic address made by US President John F. Kennedy on March 15, 1962, in which he was the first world statesman to set out a vision of consumer rights and recognise the importance of consumers as a group. World Consumer Rights Day first took place on March 15, 1983 and has since become an important occasion for mobilising consumer action.
Standardisation
As already pointed out, one way in which consumers can play meaningful roles is by actively participating in standardisation. Standards are published documents that help to make products and services safe, effective and efficient. They are written through a formal process involving wide consultation with relevant bodies – including consumer representatives – and come in the form of test methods, guides, codes of practice, terminologies or specifications. Standards matter to consumers because they help to protect them and also ensure that they are given enough information to make informed choices.
Needless to say, consumers are the largest economic group in the country’s economy, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. However, they are also the only important group that are not effectively organised and whose views are not often heard. Governments world wide, by nature of being the representatives of all people, have special obligations to the needs of consumers.
The rights of consumers cover a range of issues, namely, basic needs, safety, needed information, choice from a range of products, representation, redress where necessary, consumer education and healthy environment. These rights have universal significance as they symbolise the aspirations of the poor and disadvantaged. On this basis, the United Nations (UN), in April 1985, adopted them for consumer protection.
WCRD marks an occasion for celebration and solidarity within the international consumer movement: promoting the basic rights of all consumers, demanding that those rights are respected and protected as well as protesting about market abuses and social injustices which undermine them.
Finally, as the world celebrates the day, Ghana and the rest of the world need to work hard to make out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes faster and more effective.
In Ghana, an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) body is already in existence but more education is needed by consumers on the operation and advantages of the ADR to boost its efficiency and coverage. This way, the rights of consumers will be respected and the day made meaningful.
The writer is Head of Public Relations, Ghana Standards Authority. Writer’s e-mail [email protected]