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Oct 06 2024

ECOWAS promotes harmonized phytosanitary certificate to facilitate agricultural trade in West Africa

Gendarmes, police officers, customs officers, road hauliers, freight forwarders, phytosanitary inspectors, traders and processors… more than 87 key players in agricultural trade from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger and Togo are struggling to contain their joy at seeing their activities facilitated thanks to the harmonised phytosanitary certificate introduced by the ECOWAS Commission to help facilitate trade between countries in the sub-region.

For years, farmers and traders in the ECOWAS region faced various difficulties in selling their produce from one country to another because of disparate health regulations. Amadou Kabré, a maize producer from Burkina Faso, remembers: “Every border was like a wall. Our products could be perfect here, but rejected over there.”

This standardised document, which is now used to certify that plants and plant products exported from one member country to another meet phytosanitary standards, comes as a relief to livestock traders, as Alidou Alhassani, President of Togo’s livestock and meat industry, explains: “This certificate is very welcome. It means we don’t have to go through the same formalities again when our animals arrive. It avoids wasting time and therefore reduces the selling price of the animals.

As part of the implementation of the West African Food System Resilience Programme (PRSA/FSRP), a major awareness-raising campaign on the adoption of the Harmonised Phytosanitary Certificate has targeted key players in agricultural trade in order to simplify trade between ECOWAS member countries by reducing non-tariff barriers and technical barriers.

 

These awareness-raising sessions were coupled with training for plant health inspectors on the Harmonised Guide to Health Inspection and Risk-Based Decision Making. “It’s like we’ve been given a new pair of glasses”, says Kwesi, a Ghanaian inspector. “Now we can identify and prevent these invisible hazards.”

The Guide and the harmonised phytosanitary certificate aim to guarantee that plants and plant products are free from pests and diseases, thereby protecting the agricultural ecosystems of importing countries while ensuring the health of their populations. These tools are appreciated by customs officers such as Adogblé Koffi, Customs Inspector in charge of rules of origin in Togo. “These documents give us additional tools for border control, and also enable us to find out who is involved in issuing the certificate, who we can contact if we have any doubts about its authenticity. We have also been taught control techniques for specific products.

Today, Amadou looks to the horizon with hope. “The borders are starting to open up, not just physically, but in our minds too. We’re beginning to see West Africa as one big market. ECOWAS is stepping up its efforts to promote intra-regional trade and protect crops against phytosanitary threats, thereby contributing to food security and agricultural resilience in West Africa, much to the delight of stakeholders. For Mr Sablikou BANIKOLE, Plant Health Inspector at the Autonomous Port of Lomé, “in our work, there is a lack of communication between stakeholders. This ECOWAS initiative has enabled us to exchange views with other regional trade players. We’ve all learned a lot, and it’s clear that the key players are fully behind it.

The results of these initiatives are beginning to be felt. We are seeing significant flexibility in the examination of products at border gates, with fewer rejections for SPS reasons than would previously have been the case.

These various awareness-raising initiatives demonstrate that with a collaborative and targeted approach, barriers to trade can be overcome.

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Le FSRP est une approche programmatique qui vise à accroître la productivité agricole grâce des pratiques climato-intelligentes tout en promouvant les chaînes de valeur agricoles et le commerce intra-régional. 

  • The FSRP is a programmatic approach that aims to increase agricultural productivity through climate-smart practices while promoting agricultural value chains and intra-regional trade.

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