Introduction and legal status

Africert was developed through GTZ funding and registered as a limited company by shares in 2003 and acquired ISO 65/EN 45011 accreditation from DAP (Deutsches Akkreditierungssystem Prüfwesen, German Accreditation System for Testing), a German based accreditation body under the International Accreditation Forum Inc) in December 2004. 

In August 2006, AfriCert attracted its first international investor the “Rockefeller-Gatsby Venture Capital Fund,” AAC (Africa Agricultural Capital) as its main investor and 4 other small individual local share holders. The current staff capacity comprises of 13 permanent technical staff (inspectors and auditors) and 3 support staff.

In November 2009, Africert opened an office in Ghana (Accra) to cater for the West Africa market for GlobalGap, Rainforest Alliance and Utz Certified and other scopes that will be needed by the market. The reason for this has been to extend the core reason why Africert was formed (to take certification as close to the people as possible) to the West African region and in this cut un necessary transactional costs of flying auditors from Kenya. This office although being managed by an Africert staff from Kenya will endeavor to employ and capacity build local staff in Ghana and Ivory Coast using the same model that it did when it set up Africert (Kenya) five years ago. The office has received a lot of support from the just concluded USAID project TIPCEE and the GTZ Ghana office.

Accreditations and services

The organisation has accreditation for two scopes, that is, the GlobalGap certification for Fruits and Vegetables and Coffee for the Utz Certified standard. This accreditation has given Africert the required credibility with other standards’ and has in this regards, received approval for other independent verifications/inspection i.e the Starbucks C.A.F.E Practice, the 4 C (Common Code for the Coffee Community) standard, Coffee inspection for AAA-Nespresso standards, Rainforest Alliance auditing in Coffee, Cocoa, Fruits, Tea and Flowers, HACCP inspection for Food processors, Organic inspection under Ceres GmbH, Cut Flower inspections for the MPS GAP/SQ Dutch standard on Environment and Social accountability in the Cut flower sector, ETP (Ethical Tea Partnership) auditing and CMiA Cotton Made in Africa Verification.

Regions

Africert carries out different services in different countries. These are as follows:

1. Rainforest Alliance: East Africa, Malawi, Zambia, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, India and Indonesia
2. Utz Certified: East Africa, Burundi, Rwanda and Ghana
3. CAFE (Starbucks): East Africa, Rwanda
4. GlobalGap: East Africa and Ghana
5. 4C: East Africa, Rwanda and Ethiopia
6. Cut Flowers: East Africa, Zambia, Ethiopia, South Africa
7. AAA-Nespresso-Coffee: Kenya
8. ETP: East Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe
9. CMiA: Ivory Coast