SIS (Swedish Standards Institute), ECOWAS/ARSO, 2015-2017, standardisation

The proposed project aimed to contribute to vital and sustainable, local and regional, standardization processes with broad involvement from the private and public sectors, as well as from civil society, in order to build the capacity necessary to influence the content of international standards. The Swedish Standards Institute (SIS), the ECOWAS Commission, and the African Organization for Standardisation (ARSO) picked two ongoing standardization-setting processes of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as case studies. The was to provide the National Standardization Bodies (NSBs) of the ECOWAS countries with knowledge about standard processes, about standard-setting in general, and about how to influence ISO- and ARSO-standards from a national and regional perspective.  The project was managed in close collaboration with the ECOWAS Secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria and ARSO, African Regional Standards Organization, in Nairobi, Kenya. A key to success of the project was close collaboration between SIS, ECOWAS and ARSO and two coordinators were hired to be based on ECOWAS- and ARSO- Secretariats respectively to strengthen the project and increase ownership.  The project commenced with an inception phase of six months (June-November 2016) and continued with a 13 months implementation phase. Despite the short implementation period, the project has contributed to influencing and highlighting the need for the NSBs in the ECOWAS region to increase their active participation in standard development. By and large, the project has made a positive contribution to the ECOWAS region in terms of building capacity for national and regional standardisation. For example through contributing to strengthening individuals and organizations capacity in standard development; facilitating and support regional harmonization of standards in the region; and support to the countries through ARSO/ISO sponsorship to participate in ARSO/ISO meetings allowing the region to influence the standardisation processes and affect the standards per se.  Some examples of activities are that two regional capacity building activities, sponsorships to five different ARSO/ISO meetings (1 ISO and 4 ARSO) and three online sessions have been conducted during the project lifetime. The two selected standardisation processes as case studies to increase the capacity on how to engage and contribute to standard development were ISO/TC 34 (ARSO THC 02) on Food and Agriculture and ISO/TC 59(ARSO THC 03) on Building and Construction. More than 100 individuals have participated in workshops and trainings. The project led to increased number of approved ARSO/ISO sponsored delegates as well as number of different ARSO/ISO meetings attended. Moreover, increased participation by experts /stakeholders representing private/public sectors in the ECOWAS region was a result of this project.   

Standards and standardisation can be used as a tool for supporting a more sustainabledevelopment and to promote trade opportunities. The aim of this contribution was to improve stakeholder driven standardisation processes within the ECOWAS region, leading to increased use and harmonisation of ECOWAS and ARSO standards. Enhanced knowledge and experience on regional and international standard setting processes among national standardization bodies (NSB) and other involved stakeholders in the ECOWAS region, leading to enhanced capacity and involvement of ECOWAS stakeholders in both ARSO- and ISO standard setting processes as well as more regional collaboration on standards.