The increasing availability of Covid-19 vaccines was an encouraging breakthrough in 2021 that turned a lot of things around. However, the pandemic is not over, and many of the challenges we encountered in 2020 remained. With a few exceptions, most of PTB’s International Cooperation activities therefore still took place in a virtual setting, and working from home also remained prevalent.

Nevertheless, we also handled this year well and were able to benefit from what we had established in the previous year in terms of digital working methods and even optimised some processes. We plan to make use of these new options after the pandemic, and consider them as a good foundation to make our work even more sustainable and climate-friendly in the future through the use of virtual formats.

What we will remember about 2021 is that it was not only another year in which we had to face challenges associated with the pandemic. Above all, we look back on successful and committed collaboration with our partner institutions. This not only concerns strengthening national quality infrastructure systems in general. We were also active within the context of our projects on issues that directly support our partners in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Examples include the procurement of laboratory equipment for Covid-19 analyses and PCR tests for the Palestinian Territories or equipment and training measures for the calibration of infrared thermometers for Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda and Mongolia. Likewise, in the course of the long-standing cooperation with the African Union and its Member States, PTB has been supporting local drug and vaccine production in Africa since the beginning of this year, with a special focus on Covid-19 vaccines. The aim is to strengthen quality assurance and the regulation of vaccine production in the countries of South Africa, Ghana and Senegal.

We have developed our online presence further: Information on our efforts to help our partners fight Covid-19 can be found on our Covid-19 Response page. Virtual learning and online training formats are available on a special Capacity Development Online page. New websites about our tools, for example CALIDENA, and our projects such as “Upgrading of Quality Infrastructure in Africa” complement this portfolio.

In the past months, we have reported on numerous activities of our projects here in the Candela blog. Please feel free to browse through the archive.

We at International Cooperation would like to say a big thank you to all our supporters and wish you all a healthy and happy 2022!

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