Successfully strengthening regional accreditation in West Africa: SOAC has issued its first accreditation certificates in Côte d’Ivoire and Benin

The West African Accreditation System (Système Ouest Africain d'Accréditation - SOAC) is the sole multi-economy accreditation body serving eight ECOWAS Member States: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. (Countries such as Cape Verde, Guinea or Liberia are already exploring ways of cooperating with SOAC).

Based in Abidjan/Côte d’Ivoire, SOAC has just issued its first accreditation certificates to four laboratories: Three in the agri-food sector (Côte d'Ivoire: BIOTITIALE, VAGNY LAB and The National Laboratory of Public Health [LNSP]) and one in the field of mass calibration (the LEMA in Benin).

The achievements of SOAC are a result of a series of successful projects supporting the West African Quality Infrastructure system, which were made possible through a long-standing partnership between the UEMOA and ECOWAS Commissions, the European Union and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

“Without the support of the WAEMU-ECOWAS Quality Programmes, funded by EU and executed by UNIDO, the rapid progression of SOAC over the last years would not have been possible,” said Marcel Gbaguidi, Director-General of SOAC.

Click here to read the online article on the  West Africa Quality System Programme (WAQSP) website.

For more information: Mr. Bernard Bau (B.Bau [at] unido.org (B[dot]Bau[at]unido[dot]org)) or Mr. Marcel Gbaguidi (info [at] soac-waas.org (info[at]soac-waas[dot]org))