The World Customs Organization (WCO), in partnership with the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and under the framework of the EU-WCO Rules of Origin Africa Programme funded by the European Union, held a workshop on e-certification and self-certification in Accra, Ghana, from 2 to 5 May 2023. The workshop also saw the participation of origin and IT experts from the ECOWAS pilot countries, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. The European Union delegation to Ghana took part in the opening session and parts of the discussion sessions. The workshop is building on the needs expressed by ECOWAS and its members during consultations with the RoO Africa Programme in October 2022.

Mr. Felix Kwame Kwakye, Principal Programme Officer-Tariff & Customs Procedures of the ECOWAS Commission highlighted in his opening remarks the importance of the digitalization of customs procedures which would engender increased confidence in Customs, He stressed that self-certification of origin would raise the facilitation of trade as well as the level of compliance within the supply chain.

Mr. Raffaele Quarto, Trade Counsellor at the EU delegation to Ghana opened the meeting, emphasising that the correct implementation of the ECOWAS and AfCFTA rules of origin will enhance intra-regional and intra-continental trade thereby leading to sustainable development. The EU finds it critical to support the enhancement of understanding, implementation, and application of rules of origin and free trade agreements and to facilitate trade for compliant traders by ensuring a certain streamlining of origin procedures.

Participants discussed the state of play and progress for the two projects. The automation status of each pilot country was presented as well as the detailed overall process of exchange of electronic certificates. Member countries also presented the list of companies pre-selected for the pilot project on self-certification and discussed the challenges in the selection process.

The workshop concluded with the adoption of the road map for the go live of the e-certification and the road map for the implementation of self-certification in ECOWAS.

The participants also discussed needs for technical assistance in relation to self-certification and e-certification and how the RoO Africa Programme can contribute. The Programme will continue to support ECOWAS and its members with the aim to provide meaningful and targeted capacity building and technical assistance.

For further information please contact EU-WCORoOAfrica.Program@wcoomd.org