From 6 to 10 June 2016, the WAQSP organized a training workshop for secretariat offices managers, future supervisors and auditors of ECOWAS and National Quality Awards. It came after a workshop of definition of harmonized criteria, at national and regional level, held in Abidjan on 25 and 26 January 2016. For five days, about thirty pre-selected beneficiaries by the WAQSP in the fifteen countries of the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) and Mauritania were trained by a pool of experts recruited by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the program implementing agency.

The main objective was to strengthen the capacities of key resources persons involved in the process of organizing the ECOWAS and National Quality Awards. Specifically, it concerns:

• train all participants, especially awards managers to the process of organizing and managing an award secretariat office (ECOWAS and national level);

• train the future auditors and supervisors to the audit techniques and standards of ECOWAS and National Quality Awards;

• inform future supervisors on their responsibilities in order to ensure the methodological consistency and impartiality during audits of ECOWAS Quality Award, in all countries.

According to Mr. Kalilou TRAORE, ECOWAS Commissioner for Industry and Private Sector Promotion (IPSP), ‘’the purpose of this workshop is to facilitate the organization of awards at the States level, particularly those which do not have yet a similar experience in the matter’’. He also said that «control by the recipients of the organization and management processes of an award secretariat office, in addition to reference thereto, will significantly contribute to the promotion of quality in the region’’. What really pleased Mr. AKA Jean-Joseph Kouassi, representing Mr. Victor Djemba, Resident Representative of UNIDO in Dakar, as he said: ‘’the context of free trade where tariff and non tariff barriers are rejected, has made quality the guarantee of market access’’. Therefore, indicated Mr. Mamadou DIOP, General Secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Mines, ‘’this ECOWAS Quality Award is a regional response that should encourage the adoption and development of quality management within companies in the region’’. A goal sought by the ECOWAS Commission that set up in 2013 the regulation C/ REG.17/12/13 adopting the rules of organizing the ECOWAS Quality Award.

‘’The process is strongly supported by the European Union through the WAQSP, funded to the tune of 12 million €, which started in September 2014 for a period of 4 years’’, as recalled Mr. Clemens Schroeter, Economics, Trade and Governance section Chief at the Delegation of the European Union (EU) in Senegal.

Indeed, among the program’s missions, it is planned to pursue the support to the ECOWAS Commission for the organization of the 1st Edition of the ECOWAS Quality Award.