Public Enquiry Stage: Standard Harmonisation in the ECOWAS Region – ECOSHAM

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Date : 27 Feb 2017 - 08 Apr 2017
Venue : ECOWAS Commission,
Town : ABUJA
Country : Nigeria

By Regulation C/REG.14/12/12 adopting ECOWAS Standard Harmonisation Procedures, the ECOWAS Council of Ministers adopted the Standard Harmonisation of the ECOWAS region (ECOSHAM).

ECOSHAM is based on the African model (ASHAM), and complies with relevant ISO/IEC Directives. It also takes due account of WTO Agreements on TBT.

In that regard, the following international principles guide the ECOSHAM process:

• Non-discrimination,
• Transparency
• Impartiality and Consensus,
• Hierarchy,
• Effectiveness and Relevance,
• Consistency

The technical standard harmonisation process is led by National Standard Organisations (NSOs) of our fifteen Member States through six Technical Harmonisation Committees (THCs) and a Technical Management Committee (TMC) comprising fifteen NSO Heads.

The standard harmonisation process involves the eight stages below:

1. Preliminary Stage
2. Proposition Stage
3. Preparatory Stage
4. Committee Stage

• Public Survey Stage

1. Consultation Stage
2. Approval/Certfication Stage
3. Publication Stage

The purpose of the Public Survey Stage is to collect, from the largest audience possible, comments, opinions and remarks on the draft standard to be harmonised.

In this respect, it is deemed appropriate to use the Commission’s website.

We therefore would like you to send us, during the public survey stage, your comments, observations and remarks on the attached draft standards. A comment form (herewith enclosed) is provided for the purpose. Once the form is filled, please send it via email to the Secretariat of the Technical Harmonisation Committee (THC) spearheading the process; his/her email address is mentioned hereafter at the end of this text.

Consequently, in addition to the actions undertaken by each of the fifteen ECOWAS National Standard Organisations, we intend to reach the largest audience possible.

The Public Survey opened here focuses on the following three draft standards of the Technical Committee 1 (THC1) Agricultural Products:

1. Specification for Groundnut
2. Code of Practice for the Prevention and Reduction of Aflatoxin Contamination in Groundnuts
3. Code of Practice for Processing Cassava Products

Comments, observations and remarks should be transcribed on the forms provided herewith and sent before 08^th April 2017 to the following address:

 chinyere.egwuonwu@son.gov.ng

chiokeyegwu@yahoo.com

Resources

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1. PUBLIC ENQUIRY STAGE
2. ED ECOSTAND 2016 Code of practice for cassava and cassava products
3. D ECOSTAND 031 2016 Code of Practice for the Prevention and Reduction of Aflatoxin Contamination in Groundnuts
4. D ECOSTAND 030 2016 SPECIFICATION FOR GROUNDNUT
5. COMMENT TEMPLATE D ECOSTAND 2016 Code of Practice for Processing Cassava Products
6. COMMENT TEMPLATE Groundnut
7. COMMENT TEMPLATE Code of Practice for the Prevention of Contamination in Groundnuts