West African Quality Programme

As a major engine of growth and economic development for developing countries, trade plays an important role in reducing poverty.

As a major engine of growth and economic development for developing countries, trade plays an important role in reducing poverty. Although a number of duty- and quota-free initiatives have been launched to give developing countries better access to markets, many do not yet enjoy equitable participation in global trade. They are hampered by the absence of a supply capacity and inadequate quality infrastructure to prove compliance with market requirements, especially standards and technical regulations.

The greater part of the non-oil export revenues of West Africa originates from commodity exports such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and other agricultural produce. Most of these agrobased commodities have a potential for local processing that would increase local value-added.

Between 2001 and 2005, UNIDO implemented a programme to strengthen the export competitiveness of the eight West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) countries. Key exports included cotton, fish, fruit, vegetables, cashew nuts, oil seeds and edible oils. Internationally accredited microbiological and chemical testing and SPS compliance systems were not available to local exporters. The programme provided technical expertise mainly in accreditation, standardization, metrology, product testing and quality promotion and targeted agro-industrial sectors.

UNIDO assisted in: establishing a subregional institutional structure for coordinating standardization, certification and quality promotion; establishing modern national standardization institutes in each country; creating a subregional accreditation body; training 500 executives/ scientists, 200 private consultants, 53 auditor-evaluators and 50 auditors in the region; adopting standards for 500 key products and giving easy access to international standards; developing a database for the standards and technical regulations of the eight participating countries; and establishing a quality awards system for the best performing enterprises.

The positive results achieved led to a successor programme in support of all 15 countries in the Economic Community of West African States and Mauritania, once more funded by the European Union. The programme aims to foster compliance with international trade rules and regulations, in particular the World Trade Organization agreements on technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, through the establishment and strengthening of national and regional quality infrastructure for the entire West African region. The West African Quality Programme will contribute to the development of an enabling business environment that will allow enterprises to produce goods that meet market requirements, including public and private standards. The programme will, in particular, upgrade quality infrastructure and services for the internationally accepted proof of such compliance.

The €14 million programme, financed by the European Union, will comprise eight activities: trade analysis, accreditation, standardization, metrology, product testing, quality promotion, traceability and inspection.