Since Kenya Bureau of Standards’ inception in 1974, its main activities have grown from the development of standards and quality control for a limited number of locally made products in the 1970s to the provision of more comprehensive standards development, Metrology, Conformity Assessment, Training and Certification services.
With the re-establishment of the East African Community (EAC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), KEBS activities now include participation in the development and implementation of SMCA activities at the regional level where it participates in the harmonization of standards, measurements and conformity assessment regimes for regional integration.KEBS operates the National Enquiry Point in support of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)

1. Provision of the country’s Quality Infrastructure for facilitation of trade: In the present era of Trade Globalization, market entry requires compliance to international standards and evidence of such compliance through an internationally recognized Standards, Measurement Systems (Metrology), Conformity Assessment and Accreditation.
2. Support of Kenya Industries: A functioning quality infrastructure helps increase productivity in manufacturing and service delivery. This helps create jobs and encourages investment.
3. Sustainability of production systems: Quality infrastructure helps bring about improvements in environmental protection through sustainable consumption and production, health care, consumer protection, and distributes national wealth more equally by enabling transfer of knowledge to small enterprises.