The Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA), a not-for-profit organisation based in Cape Town in South Africa, assists a range of healthcare facilities to meet and maintain quality standards and thereby provide safe, quality services. In the past 21 years of operation, COHSASA has worked in over 600 facilities in both the public and private sectors in South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Egypt and Kenya. COHSASA runs programmes in a range of facilities including hospitals, clinics, hospices, emergency medical services, environmental health offices and rehabilitation/sub-acute establishments. There is a strong focus on building capacity. The COHSASA programme helps healthcare professionals to measure themselves against standards. This approach teaches healthcare workers how to monitor improvements using quality improvement methods, internationally accredited standards and a web-based information system. COHSASA has achieved global recognition and is the only African health facility accrediting body that is accredited by the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua). Since it achieved its first accreditation award from ISQua in 2002, the Council has maintained its accredited status with three further accreditations. Its current ISQua accreditation status is valid until December 2018. Two sets of its standards – for hospitals and palliative care – are currently accredited by ISQua and COHSASA’s Surveyor Training Programme is accredited by ISQua until 2018. COHSASA offers its services to meet individual client needs so that healthcare facilities are equipped for the long-term to meet the safety and quality health needs of the population they serve in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.