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Honorable Mohammed B. Daramy, ECOWAS commissioner for Trade, Custom, Industry and Mines and Free Movement of Persons and Goods and Tourism has said that the implementation of the West Africa Quality Programme would result in an increase in the export competitiveness of the West Africa region through strengthening of national and regional quality infrastructures as well as fostering the harmonization of the member states’ ability to respond to trade liberalization challenges such as Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary requirements.
Hon. Drammeh made this submission on Wednesday at the opening of a two day regional steering committee meeting on the West Africa Quality Programme held at the Laico Atlantic Beach Hotel in Banjul.
According to him, WAQP is a development support financed by the European Commission under EDF 9 and 10 respectively. He said that the fundamental aim of embarking on the programme is to improve technical expertise in accreditation, standardization, metrology, and product and quality promotion in order to improve the West Africa quality infrastructure mainly in the agro-industry sector.
He challenged the regional steering committee meeting to review the progress made since the inception of the programme bearing in mind that they are at the terminal of its implementation, if only not extended. According to him, it is necessary to know the extent both sides have gone in implementing their demands, challenges and what level of capacity has been built for managing quality and standardization.
“These are measurable indicators for us to assess the progress made or not made in implementing the programme over the period under review. It will be recalled that the Regional Support Unit (RSU) was mandated to develop indicators for the implementation of technical activities of the programme,” he noted. He stressed the need to identify the factor militating against the efficiency of implementing the programme, also the level of funds allocated by the programme for national activities.
“WAQP is a key instrument in the industrialization process of the community as well as in the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), the Common External Tariff (CET), the ECOWAS Trade Liberation Scheme (ETLS) and other regional integration programmes and initiatives,” he added.
Whilst he commended all stakeholders in ensuring that the programme is well implemented, he underscored their inclination as West Africans to overcome the challenges of strengthening national and regional quality infrastructure that provides effective services in standardization, conformity assessment and accreditation that meet international standards.
“The ECOWAS Commission shall do everything possible to ensure that the programme is sustained even after our development partners have withdrawn their support. In this regard, the role of the Commission cannot be underscored because its performance will be judged very largely by its ability to contribute meaningfully to transforming the regional economy from that of an export of raw materials to export of value added manufactured goods that are of high quality and are competitive,” he submitted.
In his opening remarks, Modou Ceesay, the vice chairperson of the National Steering Committee of West Africa Quality Programme (WAQP) noted that the efforts made by WAQP in the country with regards to the promotion and development of quality infrastructure could not be over-emphasized. He thanked various stakeholders and implementing partners for their efforts.
Ludovic Ciechanovski, representing the EU Commission said that despite the fact that the EU is an observer in the committee; it is still committed to the programme that is key for the trade facilitation between the two regions.
The meeting has the objectives of reviewing the progress made by Component 2 of the WAQP between April 2009 and March 2010; assess actions taken in accordance with the recommendations made at the last meeting as well as to improve the program’s work plan for 2010 and consider a proposal made by the project management for non-cost extension of the program to December, 2010.